Advances in Spatial Science

Editorial Board
David F. Batten
Manfred M. Fischer
Geoffrey J. D. Hewings
Peter Nijkamp
Folke Snickars (Coordinating Editor)

Springer- Verlag Berlin Heidelberg GmbH

Titles in the Series
c. S. Bertuglia, M. M. Fischer
and G. Preto (Eds.)
Technological Change,
Economic Development and Space
XVI, 354 pages. 1995. ISBN 3-540-59288-1
(out of print)
H. Coccossis and P. Nijkamp (Eds.)
Overcoming Isolation
VIII, 272 pages. 1995. ISBN 3-540-59423-X
L. Anselin and R. J. G. M. Florax (Eds.)
New Directions in Spatial Econometrics
XIX, 420 pages. 1995. ISBN 3-540-60020-5
(out of print)
H. Eskelinen and F. Snickars (Eds.)
Competitive European Peripheries
VIII, 271 pages. 1995. ISBN 3-540-60211-9
J. C. J. M. van den Bergh, P. Nijkamp
and P. Rietveld (Eds.)
Recent Advances in
Spatial Equilibrium Modelling
VIII, 392 pages. 1996. ISBN 3-540-60708-0
P. Nijkamp, G. Pepping and D. Banister
Telematics and Transport Behaviour
XII, 227 pages. 1996. ISBN 3-540-60919-9
D. F. Batten and C. Karlsson (Eds.)
Infrastructure and the Complexity
of Economic Development
VIII, 298 pages. 1996. ISBN 3-540-61333-1
T. Puu
Mathematical Location and
Land Use Theory
IX, 294 pages. 1997. ISBN 3-540-61819-8
Y. Leung
Intelligent Spatial Decision Support Systems
Xv, 470 pages. 1997. ISBN 3-540-62518-6
C. S. Bertuglia, S. Lombardo
and P. Nijkamp (Eds.)
Innovative Behaviour in Space and Time
X, 437 pages. 1997. ISBN 3-540-62542-9
A. Nagumey and S. Siokos
Financial Networks
XVI, 492 pages. 1997. ISBN 3-540-63116-X
M. M. Fischer and A. Getis (Eds.)
Recent Developments in Spatial Analysis
X, 434 pages. 1997. ISBN 3-540-63180-1
R. H. M. Emmerink
Information and Pricing
in Road Transportation
XVI, 294 pages. 1998. ISBN 3-540-64088-6
F. Rietveld and F. Bruinsma
Is Transport Infrastructure Effective?
XIV, 384 pages. 1998. ISBN 3-540-64542-X
P. McCann
The Economics of Industrial Location
XII, 228 pages. 1998. ISBN 3-540-64586-1
L. Lundqvist, L.-G. Mattsson
and T. J. Kim (Eds.)
Network Infrastructure
and the Urban Environment
IX, 414 pages. 1998. ISBN 3-540-64585-3
R. Capello, P. Nijkamp and G. Pepping
Sustainable Cities and Energy Policies
XI, 282 pages. 1999. ISBN 3-540-64805-4
M. M. Fischer and P. Nijkamp (Eds.)
Spatial Dynamics of European Integration
XII, 367 pages. 1999. ISBN 3-540-65817-3
J. Stillwell, S. Geertman
and S. Openshaw (Eds.)
Geographical Information and Planning
X, 454 pages. 1999. ISBN 3-540-65902-1
G. J. D. Hewings, M. Sonis, M. Madden
and Y. Kimura (Eds.)
Understanding and Interpreting Economic
Structure
X, 365 pages. 1999. ISBN 3-540-66045-3
A. Reggiani (Ed.)
Spatial Economic Science
XII, 457 pages. 2000. ISBN 3-540-67493-4
P. W. J. Batey, P. Friedrich (Eds.)
Regional Competition
VIII, 290 pages. 2000. ISBN 3-540-67548-5
Donald G. Janelle . David C. Hodge (Eds.)

Information, Place, and

Cyberspace
Issues in Accessibility

With 77 Figures
and 27 Tables

Springer
Prof. Dr. DONALD G. JANELLE
University of California, Santa Barbara
Center for Spatially Integrated Social Science
Santa Barbara, CA 93106-4060
USA

Prof. Dr. DAVID C. HODGE

University of Washington
College of Arts and Sciences
Seattle, WA 98195-3765
USA

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data applied for

Die Deutsche Bibliothek - CIP-Einheitsaufnahme
Information, place, and cyberspace: issues in accessibility; with 27 tables/ed.: Donald G. Janelle; David C.
Hodge. - Berlin; Heidelberg; New York; Barcelona; Hong Kong; London; Milan; Paris; Singapore; Tokyo:
Springer, 2000
(Advances in spatial science)
ISBN 978-3-642-08692-2 ISBN 978-3-662-04027-0 (eBook)
DOI 10.1007/978-3-662-04027-0
This work is subject to copyright. All rights are reserved, whether the whole or part of the material is
concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcast-
ing, reproduction on microfilm or in any other way, and storage in data banks. Duplication of this pub-
lication or parts thereof is permitted only under the provisions of the German Copyright Law of Septem-
ber 9, 1965, in its current version, and permission for use must always be obtained from Springer-Verlag.
Violations are liable for prosecution under the German Copyright Law.

© Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2000

Originally published by Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg New York in 2000.
Softcover reprint of the hardcover I st edition 2000

The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, etc. in this publication does not
imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protec-
tive laws and regulations and therefore free for general use.
Cover design: Erich Kirchner, Heidelberg
Typesetting: Camera ready by editors
SPIN 10733972 4212202/xz Printed on acid-free paper 543 2 I 0
Foreword

The use of the term the information age to describe the period that we now fmd
ourselves living in is open to misinterpretation. Society has always been based on
exchanging information, and our libraries have long been rieh sources of vast
quantities of readily available information; it is information technologies that have
changed rapidly sinee the invention of the digital computer. These technologies
are themselves products of long-term societal processes: The eeonomic desire to
shorten the time that lapses between produetion and consumption of eommodities,
annihilating space with time; the political desire to control such large-scale sys-
tems as commodity ehains, nations, and the military; and the human desire to lib-
erate ourselves from the constraints of our loeal daily lives. They also have had
profound effeets on societal proeesses. One of the most widely discussed effeets,
and a eonsistent theme of this volume, is that the information age is bringing about
the end of geographie al distance as a signifieant baITier ofhuman interaction.
This claim underlies prognostications about the information age: That this will
be the age of globalization; of the global village; of the liberation of human inter-
action from the tyranny of space; of the dissolution of cities and workplaces; of
the plugged-in soeiety; and of the surveillance society. If these prognostications
were true, then the topie of aceessibility would indeed be a disappearing research
pro gram and this book a marker of its disappearance. Yet, things are much more
complicated than this; the demise of distanee has been greatly exaggerated. While
there is a germ of truth to these prognostications, as there must be for them to
resonate as they do, they often disguise more than they reveal. Flows of informa-
tion are possible almost irnmediately over distances of arbitrary length, but this
does not mean that everyone is equally accessible to everyone else. Rather, the
geometry of the information age approximates the hypothesized worrnholes of
quantum physics - instantaneous connections between those who are plugged in to
the right equipment, while neighbors remain off-line and inaceessible. Geographie
and non-geographie information are available in unpreeedented quantities, but
they aceumulate in the hands of certain social actors whereas others are excluded
- creating black holes where information seems to disappear from social view.
Even the ultimate distance-Iess society, cyberspace, becomes un-navigable with-
out using spatial metaphors to make sense of it, and is eonnected in complex but
predictable ways to the differentiated material spaees of society.
This eolleetion of essays takes up the challenge of rethinking what aeeessibility
means and how to measure it in the information age, with particular attention to
geographie information. It addresses not only aecessibility between those who are
plugged in, and the geography of cyberspace, but also differences in aecessibility
to information technologies and the relationship between cyber-accessibility and
aecessibility on the ground. In doing so, the authors revive what has been an im-
vi Foreword

portant but theoretically moribund concept; breathing new life into the concept of
accessibility, and challenging preconceptions about its demise. They also move
beyond attempts to equate accessibility with an exogenous Newtonian metric of
Euclidean distance to unpack how accessibility is a construct of socia1 practices.
The conversations that lie behind this book were catalyzed and made possible by
a conference organized under the auspices of the National Center for Geographie
Information and Analysis. This conference, Measuring and Representing Accessi-
bility in the Information Age, was held in November 1998, at the Asilomar Con-
ference Center in Pacific Grove, Califomia. It was one of aseries of nine meetings
organized by NCGIA between 1997 and 1999 to advance the research agenda of
geographie information science, under the Varenius Project (funded by the Na-
tional Science Foundation, NSF Grant SBR-9600465). These nine meetings were
equally divided among three areas of focus: Geographies of the Information Soci-
ety; Cognitive Models of Geographie Space; and Computational Implementations
of Geographie Concepts (http://www.ncgia.ucsb.edu:80/varenius). The accessibil-
ity meeting was held within this first area. The Geography of the Information So-
ciety Panel, chaired by Eric Sheppard and including Helen Couclelis, University
of Califomia at Santa Barbara, Stephen Graham, Newcastle University, UK, lW.
Harrington, Jr., University of Washington, and Harlan Onsrud, University of
Maine at Orono, also organized meetings on Place and Identity in an Age ofTech-
nologically Regulated Movement, and Empowerment, Marginalization and Public
Participation GIS. The Panel conceived the topic of measuring and representing
accessibility, but the success of this meeting was due to the efforts of David
Hodge and Donald Janelle in bringing the idea to fruition. Under their exceptional
organizational skills, together with those ofNCGIA staff LaNell Lucius and Abby
Caschetta, a stimulating three-day meeting occurred at which preliminary vers ions
of the chapters that follow were presented. This book is exemplary of how the
Varenius Project is catalyzing and making available new research within areas
central to geographie information science.

Michael F. Goodchild 1 and Eric Sheppard 2

1 Direetor ofProjeet Varenius and Chair ofthe Exeeutive Committee ofthe National Center
for Geographie Information and Analysis. Department of Geography, University of
Califomia, Santa Barbara CA 93106-4060, USA. Email: good@negia.uesb.edu
2 Chair ofthe Varenius Panel on Geographies ofthe Information Soeiety. Department of
Geography, University ofMinnesota, Minneapolis MN 55455, USA.
Email: sheppOO l@maroon.te.umn.edu
Preface

The objectives of this book are to broaden understanding of conceptual and ana-
lytical approaches for accessibility research appropriate to the information age,
and to demonstrate possible contributions for geographic information science in
representing the geographies of the information society. In seeking to meet these
objectives, the editors and authors highlight significant linkages among informa-
tion resources, traditional places, and cyberspace, and focus on expanding models
of space (and time) that encompass both the physical and virtual worlds.
The origins of this book stern from two multi-disciplinary conferences spon-
sored by the National Center for Geographic Information and Analysis (NCGIA).
The first was the September 1996 conference in Baltimore on Spatial Teehnolo-
gies, Geographie Information and the City. The second, from which the chapters
of this book originate, was the November 1998 conference at the Asilomar Con-
ference Center in Pacific Grove, Califomia on Measuring and Representing Ae-
eessibility in the Information Age. This book is structured around the primary
themes of that meeting. Part I explores the conceptualization and measurement of
accessibility; Part II focuses on the visualization and representation of information
space within Geographic Information Systems (GIS) and other computerized dis-
play systems, and Part III considers the social issues that should inform the meas-
urement and representation of accessibility. Each of these parts is preceded with
an integrative essay that links the individual chapters to the broader literature on
accessibility - primarily from geography, regional science, and planning. In Chap-
ter 1, the Editors offer an explanation for the book's title, casting a wide perspec-
tive that focuses on the resource role of information, the importance of
accessibility in the everyday life of places, and the co-adaptation of societal struc-
tures and cyberspace.
Special recognition is given to Helen Couclelis, who inspired the proposal for a
Varenius initiative on accessibility in the information age. She organized the con-
ference in Baltimore and was instrumental in placing accessibility on the agenda
ofthe Varenius project. In Part IV, the Conclusion, she broadens the scope ofthis
collection, raising issues regarding the sustainability of current societal accessibil-
ity practices in the interrelated realms of transportation and communication.
We thank those who made this book possible, beginning with Michael Good-
child (Director of the NCGIA's Varenius Project); he orchestrated the pre-
conditions for sponsoring a broad range of research and conference initiatives.
Members of the Varenius Panel on Geographies of the Information Society ac-
cepted a proposal to foster research on issues relating to accessibility, and we owe
special thanks to the Chair of the Panel, Eric Sheppard, for support and advice at
all stages of this project. The Steering Committee for organizing the conference at
Asilomar - Michael Batty, Helen Couclelis, Arthur Getis, Harvey Miller, and
viii Preface

Mark Wilson - made substantial contributions in conceptualizing the principal

issues for discussion and research; they are the authors of this book's principal
integrating chapters - the introductions to its first three principal Parts.
LaNell Lucius and Abby Caschetta (NCGIA staff) provided essentiallogistical
support for organizing the Asilomar conference, and Karen McFarland (Depart-
ment ofGeography, University ofWashington) structured and maintained the con-
ference Web site. Cartographic support from Patricia Chalk and Susan Muleme of
The University of Western Ontario' s Geography Department, and editorial advice
from Marianne Bopp of Springer-Verlag, are also acknowledged. We are grateful
for your interest and help.
Finally, we are indebted to the authors for sharing their research papers, for en-
gaging freely with ideas and good humor through three days of spirited and pro-
ductive discussion, and for revising their manuscripts for this book. We hope that
this collection of original work will extend the discussion to a broader audience
and encourage additional research.

DODald G. JaDeHe 1 aDd David C. Hodge 2

1 Center for Spatially Integrated Social Science, University of Califomia, Santa Barbara CA
93106-4060, USA. Email: janelle@ncgia.ucsb.edu
2 College of Arts and Sciences, University ofWashington, Seattle WA 98195-3765, USA.
Email: hodge@u.washington.edu
Contents

Foreword v
MICHAEL F. GOODCHILD AND ERlC SHEPPARD

Preface Vll

Introduction

1. Infonnation, Place, Cyberspace, and Accessibility 3

DONALD G. JANELLE AND DAVID C. HODGE

Part I: Conceptualization and Measurement 13

2. Conceptualizing and Measuring Accessibility within Physical

and Virtual Spaces 15
HELEN COVCLELIS AND ARTHVR GETIS

3. Evaluating Intra-metropolitan Accessibility in the Infonnation Age:

Operational Issues, Objectives, and Implementation 21
LAVREN M. SCOTT

4. Transportation, Telecommunications, and the Changing

Geography of Opportunity 47
QINGSHEN

5. Space, Time and Sequencing: Substitution at the Physical / Virtual

Interface 73
PIP FORER AND OTTO HVISMAN

6. The Fuzzy Logic of Accessibility 91

ERIC J. HEIKKlLA

7. The E-merging Geography ofthe Infonnation Society:

From Accessibility to Adaptability 107
DANIEL Z. SVI
x Contents

Part 11: Visualization and Representation 131

8. Representing and Visualizing Physical, Virtual and Hybrid

Infonnation Spaces 133
MICHAEL BATTY AND HARVEY J. MILLER

9. Who's Up? GlobalInterpersonal Temporal Accessibility 147

ANDREW HARVEY AND PAUL A. MACNAB

10. The Role ofthe Real City in Cyberspace: Understanding

Regional Variations in Internet Accessibility 171
MITCHELL L. Moss AND ANTHONY M. TOWNSEND

11. Accessibility to Infonnation within the Internet:

How can it Be Measured and Mapped? 187
MARTIN DODGE

12. Towards Spatial Interaction Models ofInfonnation Flows 205

SHANE MURNION

13. Application of a CAD-based Accessibility Model 217

PAUL C. ADAMS

14. Human Extensibility and Individual Hybrid-accessibility in

Space-time: A Multi-scale Representation Using GIS 241
MEI-PoKwAN

Part 111: Societal Issues 257

15. Accessibility and Societal Issues in the Infonnation Age 259

MARK I. WILSON

16. Reconceptualizing Accessibility 267

SUSAN HANSON

17. Revisiting the Concept of Accessibility: Some Comments

and Research Questions 279
SYLVIE OCCELLI
 Contents xi

18. Legal Aeeess to Geographie Infonnation: Measuring Losses

or Developing Responses? 303
HARLAN J. ONSRUD

19. Qualitative GIS: To Mediate, Not Dorninate 317

ROBERTMuGERAUER

Part IV: Conclusion 339

20. Frorn Sustainable Transportation to Sustainable Aeeessibility:

Can We Avoid a New Tragedy ofthe Commons? 341
HELEN COUCLELIS

Figures 357

Tables 361

Author Index 363

Subject Index 371

Contributors 377
Introduction
1 Information, Place, Cyberspace, and
Accessibility

Donald G. Janelle! and David C. Hodge 2

1 Center for Spatially Integrated Social Science, University of Califomia, Santa Barbara CA
93106-4060, USA. Email: janelle@ncgia.ucsb.edu
2 College of Arts and Sciences, University ofWashington, Seattle WA 98195-3765, USA.
Email: hodge@u.washington.edu

1.1 Introduction

This chapter provides a broad overview of alternate ways for seeing the operative
linkages between human experiences on the ground (in pi ace) and user experi-
ences in cyberspace. Information is treated as the resource that binds these realms
into functional human systems, while computer, telecommunication, and transpor-
tation technologies are viewed as tools of accessibility that are allocated dift'eren-
tially among people, institutions, and regions. Two general propositions guide the
discussion. First, there are significant structural linkages among information re-
sources, traditional places, and cyberspace; and second, grasping these linkages
requires expanded models of space (and time) that encompass both the physical
and virtual worlds.
The operational definitions of 'information', 'place', 'cyberspace', and 'accessibil-
ity' are seen as open-ended, subject to new interpretation in different social situa-
tions and technical domains. Information lies on a continuum ±rom raw facts to
knowledge and can be see as the outcome of creative manipulation of data and
previous insight to assist our arrival at new thresholds of understanding. In the
context of this book, information is one of the critical resources of the new econ-
omy. Information figures centrally in the processes for producing and allocating
goods and services.
Place is seen as an extended locale of human activity imbued with the heritage,
identity, and commitment ofpeople and institutions. It is often linked with notions
of family, neighborhood, and community (e.g., my hometown). However, the dis-
tinctive qualities of some places extend their recognition far beyond the local do-
main of immediate and long-term experience. Thus, Manhattan is a place in the
minds of those who have never been there and for those who share its ambiance in
a more transitory state (e.g., visitors). As with information, the meaning ofplace is
subject to transformation through social and technological innovation, and through
various levels and means of association and experience.
4 D.G. Janelle and D.C. Hodge

Cyberspace is an innovation that impacts significantly on our notions of place.

Cyberspace may be seen as an electronic linkage of computers and their users that
facilitates interaction through shared hardware, software, and protocols for com-
munication. These interactions use facilities for e-mail, chat-rooms, bulletin
boards, data and information exchange, and e-commerce. Cyberspace is also home
to virtual worlds (e.g., virtual cities and virtuallandscapes) that parallel the behav-
ioral settings and rules of places and social networks in physical space, and some
that don't. Dodge explores some of these worlds in Chapter 11. The interfacing of
the physical and virtual worlds is seen in the possibility to link creatively a vast
quantity and diversity of Web sites, and in the use of the Internet to deliver ser-
vices (cyber-medicine, distance education, electronic commerce, entertainment,
and so forth) and to search out information. However, since tools for the exploita-
tion of cyberspace are not available universally, serious questions arise about ac-
cessibility to this important new medium of exchange. As President Clinton
remarked in his State of the Union Message (27 Jan 2000), 'access today depends
on having a computer. We must elose the digital divide between those who have
the tools and those who don't.'
Accessibility shares some of the ambiguity associated with 'information', 'place'
and 'cyberspace'. Ideal or acceptable levels of accessibility are moving targets,
changing continually in response to new technical possibilities and to socially de-
fined standards. In the most general sense, accessibility relates to the ease by
which people and institutions gain use ofwhat they need to survive and to share in
the opportunities of a society. As such, accessibility is a function of several fac-
tors. These inelude physical proximity to opportunities, the technical capability to
overcome distance (e.g., automobile ownership), and the ability to surmount barri-
ers to entry (e.g., income to pay for theatre tickets, laws to prohibit discrimination,
or knowledge to use effectively a computer).
This book addresses the multi-dimensional character of accessibility. The chap-
ters that follow invoke an extensive social science literature on accessibility, de-
rived largely from the disciplines of economic geography, regional science, and
urban and regional planning. It is the objective of the editors and authors to iden-
tify changes in accessibility brought about through spatial technologies. Spatial
technologies are defined 'as the complex of transportation, communication, and
information technologies that together modify spatial relations,.1 Priorities in-
elude the need to differentiate accessibility levels among a broad range of social
groupings, and the need to study disparities in electronic accessibility. In doing so,
the authors investigate new measures and means of representing accessibility to
capture the effects of information technologies, along with those of more tradi-
tional means of spatial interaction.
Concepts of potential and realized interaction, and of accessibility, are central to
geographic theory and models. Current models are based, however, on physical

1 Helen Couclelis, ed. 1996. Spatial Teehnologies, Geographie Information, and the City,
Teehnieal Report 96-10 (Deeember). (Santa Barbara: National Center for Geographie In-
formation and Analysis), p. 6.
 Information, Place, Cyberspace, and Accessibility 5

notions of distance and connectivity that are insufficient for understanding new
forms of structures and behaviors characterizing an information age. Accessibility
and spatial interaction in the traditional physical sense remain important, but in-
formation technologies are dramatically moditying and expanding the scope of
these core geographical concepts. Through technological, structural, and social
developments, an increasing range of transactions takes place in virtual space, or
in some new hybrid space combining the physical with the virtual. Of importance
also is the influence of new forms of communication on the use of and investment
in traditional transportation infrastructure. Moreover, just as space can be frag-
mented so too can time, as activity rhythms in one place become increasingly syn-
chronized with those in distant places. Geographic information science and
technology, themselves products of this new information age, potentially have a
major role to play in helping to reconceptualize, measure, represent, monitor, and
plan for the new emergent geographies of accessibility.

1.2 Information and Accessibility

Goodchild and Sheppard (see Foreword) recognize correctly that society has al-
ways depended on information and has gone to great lengths in promoting signifi-
cant information resources - from the notable centralized repositories at
Alexandria to the Library of Congress. However, the nineteenth-century move-
ment for public libraries in every city and town and the recent emergence of a
globally interconnected Internet are models of information resources that tran-
scend many of the barriers to building informed, knowledge-empowered societies.
Hence, it is not information alone that distinguishes the early twenty-first century
Information Age; rather, the Information Age is distinguished by the technologies
for disseminating information and by the growing dominance of information in-
dustries over the economy at large. Batty and Miller (Chapter 8) observe that in-
formation is replacing energy as the basis for organizing economies and societies.
The power and freedom that information offers motivate the quest for technolo-
gies that provide nearly instant connectivity among institutions and individuals.
The reality of technology's promise to annihilate the effects of distance on hu-
man commerce and discourse falls short of universal application. Societal proc-
esses that allocate the tools and knowledge to make this happen are embedded in
legacies of differential access to infrastructure that are difficult to overcome. Mar-
ket forces allocate information differentially over space and selectively among
people and institutions, and the commodification of information poses a price bar-
rier to access. Constrained by limits on financial resources and knowledge, many
people and institutions are bounded by systems of social and political discrimina-
tion.
Information technology provides the potential to make all places equally acces-
sible to opportunity. However, society's allocation ofthe tools for overcoming the
6 D.G. Janelle and D.C. Hodge

intrinsic baITiers of distance may feed growth in the relative inequality among
places, thus increasing rather than diminishing the underlying complexity to the
human geography of accessibility. Assessment of such a proposition makes the
measurement and representation of accessibility important scientifically and sig-
nificant socially.
It is important to assess critically the assumption that equal and unlimited acces-
sibility is necessarily in the long-term best interest of society. For instance, for
access to information, quantity may be less important than quality and timeliness.
Sui (Chapter 7) sees the inundation of information posing threatening prospects
for information-overloaded and dysfunctional societies. Separating out the crea-
tive use of information in ways that enhance individual accomplishment and
societal benefit may not be easy. Thus, ways to filter information may be as, or
more, important to some than accessibility. In the realm of cyberspace, as Dodge
(Chapter 11) observes, the ratio ofnoise to information may be very high.
Other attributes of information are also important and need to be factored into
our discussion. Hanson (Chapter 16) speaks of 'collective information assets' and
maintains that diversity of information sources enhance the choices and range of
opportunities within communities. The social context of information access also
derives from constitutional rights and legislative initiatives that can shift the con-
trol of information among public and private sector agents (see Onsrud, Chapter
18). These many facets of information resources suggest that there is no single,
easy way to measure and represent accessibility.

1.3 Place and Accessibility

The roles of places as repositories and conveyors of social capital are central to
any consideration of accessibility. In Chapter 16, Hanson sees place as a funda-
mental construct that needs to be strengthened, possibly through selective use of
communication technologies that enhance community building and human net-
working capabilities. She sees jobs as important stabilizing linkages to place for
most people. Scott (Chapter 3) and Shen (Chapter 4) make explicit attempts to
differentiate job accessibility at metropolitan levels. While transportation is the
operative tool for achieving job access, they recognize that telecommunications
and Internet access represent a growing factor in the ability to match employees
withjob opportunities.
Adam's (Chapter 13) offers a highly explicit representation ofhuman travel and
communication behavior. His use of activity diaries and CAD-based visualizations
illustrate how individual daily activities are embedded in both virtual and place-
based networks. Extensibility linkages (the ability of people to engage with distant
locations) yield virtual presence or participation beyond the local realm, but the
bounded nature of everyday life at the local level remains a paramount factor in
the lives of all subjects in his investigation. Kwan reinforces this observation in
 Information, Place, Cyberspace, and Accessibility 7

Chapter 14, illustrating through innovating mapping approaches the ability of

people to operate simultaneously at different spatial scales, from local to global
levels.
Arguably, geographical location, per se, is of less importance today than in pre-
vious decades for determining spatial interaction patterns. For example, in Chapter
2, Couclelis and Getis note the potential for a growing dissociation between places
and functions, as activities become more person-based rather than place based.
Thus, ordering a book over the Web might lessen the likelihood of place-based
interaction. Another aspect of potential dissociation with place relates to variations
in the ability of people to engage in advanced forms of telecommunications and
data transfer. Will societal cleavages based on race, ethnicity, or income intensify
as those with advanced telecommunication capability distance themselves physi-
cally through household relocation from social groups and activities that they wish
to avoid?
It remains to be seen if networks in cyberspace alter our identities with
grounded locations in physical space. Will the emergence of cyber-networks su-
persede our heritage of place-based memories and traditions? Certainly, more
complex forms of organization are emerging in ways that extend the functional-
physical continuum, bypassing customary spatial relations and embedding tradi-
tional places in broader networks of linkage beyond the physical reach of daily
transport systems. At issue is whether or not Internet usage results in a bonding of
people and institutions within the local region that is as strong (or stronger) as any
bonding that may occur with distant opportunities through cyberspace.

1.4 Cyberspace and Accessibility

Although they clearly have the capability of complementing one another, place
and virtual space share an uneasy alliance. In part, this is because of the recent,
rapid, and potentially destabilizing consequences of cyberspace. However, this
uneasy relationship mayaiso reflect insufficient attention to analyzing the struc-
ture of cyberspace and its patterns of use. Uncovering the structure of cyberspace
poses problems in the use oftraditional concepts ofmorphology and distance. The
physical hardware has the character of traditional infrastructure networks - paths,
switching centers, relays, and capacity limits. But the process of use is invisible
and does not conform to any strict Newtonian metric. The lack of a centralized
system to monitor flows of activity over the network makes geographical interpre-
tation difficult. Thus, Batty and Miller (Chapter 8) express concern for vagueness,
fluidity, and low accountability for either the content or the quality of interactions
on the Internet.
The scarcity of reliable quantitative indicators for analysis may be a major in-
hibitor to research on the nature of cyberspace. However, this book offers a few
important examples of different approaches. Moss and Townsend (Chapter 10)
8 D.G. Janelle and D.C. Hodge

compare metropolitan centers in the United States by the number of computers

connected to the Internet, Internet domain name registrations, and capacities of
backbone networks. By focusing on tangible evidence of infrastructure, their
analysis reveals the intrinsic linkage of cyberspace with the national, urban eco-
nomic landscape. Dodge's survey of literature in Chapter 11 explores some of the
attempts to map cyberspace, including his own mapping of relative accessibility
(virtual distance) based on the analysis of hyperlinks among academic Web sites
in the United Kingdom. Murnion illustrates another innovative attempt in Chapter
12. He focuses on a distance measure based on the speed ofInternet connections-
delays in the response times (latency) among a set of globally dispersed com-
puters.
In contrast, Forer and Huisman use a simulation approach to assess accessibility
patterns associated with the virtual delivery of courses to university students in
Auckland. Comparisons of accessibility patterns for students in different parts of
the city are simulated for different times of the day for standard classroom courses
offered at the university and for virtual courses accessed from horne. They illus-
trate how patterns of behavioral response and changes in individual accessibility
are easily mapped in conventional formats that could assist the evaluation of op-
tions for the delivery of education and other services.
There is significant potential for widespread service delivery and for public par-
ticipation in making decisions through cyberspace. However, the prerequisite ac-
cessibility to make this possible may be constrained by inadequacies of current
Internet navigation and communication tools. There is a need for tools and proto-
cols for efficient use ofthe Web. Idiosyncrasies ofweb-page designers can thwart
the establishment of clear standards. Designs for the users of advanced systems
frequently preclude access by those with average equipment and skill. And, the
on-line persistence of Web sites, or lack thereof, raises issues about the depend-
ability of Internet information and contact sources. Thus, there is a need to go be-
yond basic connectivity via a computer - browsing, searching, and communicating
are not easily represented through traditional social science surveys or geographi-
cal mapping techniques; yet, they constitute an important aspect of accessibility in
the information age. Adams (Chapter 13) and Kwan (Chapter 14) illustrate how
people operate simultaneously at multiple temporal and spatial scales, and how
they may be interactive with several cyber locations at the same time. Their visu-
alization techniques capture some of this complexity, but not all of it.
Not withstanding the possibilities .that new cyber navigation tools will stretch
even further the ability of people to operate at multiple scales, there is need to re-
mind ourselves that the structure of cyberspace and its use are embedded in the
realities ofphysical constraints. These include people bounded by biological needs
for sleep and food, and by scheduling constraints of jobs, and schools. While soci-
ety may be able to transfer many functions to the cyber realm, most activities still
operate in a world of material flows constrained by transportation and land use
patterns, which must be accounted for in any measurement schema.
 Information, Place, Cyberspace, and Accessibility 9

1.5 Conceptualization, Measurement, and Representation

Separating out the lack of interaction independently from the lack of access is
problematic in any effort to measure and represent accessibility. Inherited urban
structure, for example, poses a significant constraint and should be considered in
any attempt to assess the real impact of virtual technologies on future structures.
With the right hardware and software tools at their disposal, individuals now have
the capacity to selectively turn on and off their engagement with the world of in-
formation, but there is significantly less flexibility in their ability to escape the
structural confines of their immediate physical environments. This book illustrates
theoretical approaches for dealing with such issues, seen for example in Heikkila's
development of a fuzzy-logic framework for understanding the complexity of ac-
cessibility (Chapter 6). In addition, Adams (Chapter 13) and Kwan (Chapter 14)
illustrate the uses of 3-D CAD and GIS representations to depict how space-time
diaries help capture the dynamics of behavior at the individual level. These au-
thors do not claim final solutions to the problems of representation, but they do
demonstrate that new space-time typologies, and new topologies, are needed to
accommodate the interdependence of both the physical and virtual worlds of eve-
ryday life.
A hybrid blend of physical and virtual space may now constitute the new geog-
raphy of the information age; and, as Batty and Miller note (Chapter 8), it may
rein force patterns of physical infrastructure that impinge on the comparative levels
of physical accessibility for different regions. For example, on-line book pur-
chases still require transshipment facilities to accommodate the physical move-
ment from the producer to the consumer. Thus, it is interesting to consider how
virtual spaces map onto traditional conceptions of geographic space, and vice
versa, and to address the issue of how we handle such complexities analytically.
For example, how can traditional spatial interaction and spatial gradients within
hybrid spaces (and space-times) be visualized with GIS?
Are there information counterparts to the accessibility and potential surfaces
developed by regional scientists for interaction in physical space? Scott (Chapter
3) considers the issue of scale and of potential versus realized accessibility in
looking at job access in the Los Angeles region, and Shen (Chapter 4) has devised
indexes and composite measures of access to consider both commuting and tele-
commuting options within the Boston metropolitan area.
Data availability is a constraint on advances in the area of accessibility research.
The traditional national census fails to capture information on telecommunication
and Internet activity, and correspondingly omits possibilities to ac count for the
dynamics of cross-border commerce or for individual lifestyle changes in response
to the potentials of information-age technologies. Survey designs illustrated here
by Adams (Chapter 13), and Kwan, (Chapter 14), and simulation methodologies
suggested by Forer and Huisman (Chapter 5), extend the scope oftime-geography
framework for depicting human space-time behavior. And, as illustrated by Har-
vey and Macnab (Chapter 9), real-time accessibility for face-to-face or interactive
10 D.G. Janelle and D.C. Hodge

voice communication is constrained by the proportion ofthe world population that

is awake across the different time zones at any given time of the day. Their inno-
vative study poses yet additional need to extend the empirieal base for understand-
ing current issues of global interdependence and accessibility.

1.6 Societal Issues

Shen (Chapter 4) is explicit in seeing a new geography of opportunity arising from

the transportation and telecommunieation options available in metropolitan set-
tings. This paralleis closely the opening remark by Couclelis in the final chapter of
this book - 'accessibility is the geographie definition of opportunity'. Models of
how institutional and other contingencies influence who has access to whom,
what, when, and where, via physical and especially via virtual contact, are re-
quired for assessment of policy approaches to reduce inequalities in opportunities
for social and economic interaction. Analytical measures and computerized visu-
alizations of accessibility are needed to reflect hardware and software availability,
inadequacies of education and training, cultural factors, and differential relevance
of the Internet to everyday life. Such measures and representations of accessibility
will contribute insights and reference points for judging efforts to mitigate the
perpetuation of information poverty for certain places and social groups.
Discussions by Occelli (Chapter 17), Onsrud (Chapter 18), and Couclelis (Chap-
ter 20) reveal that it is just as important to understand how societies shape tech-
nologies as technologies shape societies. Information access is seen as a resource
and as a contributor to differential levels of social power. The control of informa-
tion technology and of information itself can be a means of social control that un-
dermines cultural diversity and that limits the range of the common mindset.
Questions regarding continued free access to the Internet, charges for use, and the
potential for govemment taxation impact on levels of accessibility in ways that
could alter the very nature of cyberspace and its relationships to social structures
and processes.

1. 7 Conclusion

Analytical and theoretical approaches to measuring and modeling accessibility are

certainly at a threshold for change. The chapters that follow point to innovative
possibilities to enhance understanding of how cyberspace and telecommunieations
might be embedded in more socially informed assessments of changing accessibil-
ity patterns and processes. However, Sui (Chapter 7) and the authors of chapters in
 Information, Place, Cyberspace, and Accessibility 11

Part III present critiques of methodologies that fail to account for broad social
policy and theoretical perspectives.
Sui raises the possibility that society has changed beyond the point of relevance
for worrying too much about accessibility measurement. He sees greater validity
in a more evolutionary pattern of change that is best characterized as 'adaptation'
instead of accessibility. Hanson (Chapter 16) argues that there are 'silenees' in our
existing measures of accessibility, omission of which could foster narrowness of
interpretations regarding the fundamental importance of place-based networks of
people and institutions. Indeed, Wilson (Chapter 15) reminds us that the opportu-
nity costs of accessibility should not be neglected. Mugerauer (Chapter 19) ex-
tends this argument, presenting a forceful case for empowerment in the use of
measurement and descriptive tools. He raises concerns about the culturally ho-
mogenizing influences of common information pools and analytic methodologies.
He questions whether or not current spatial analytic tools, with built-in assump-
tions about the nature of space, such as GIS, can be adapted to account for local
interests and cultural perspectives.
In the concluding section, Part IV, Couclelis adopts a policy perspective that
focuses on the potential importance of accessibility analysis to inform the trans-
formation of spatial structures in ways that are more sensitive to environmental
and societal cost constraints. She argues that automobile dependence might be
lowered through new ways of uniting transportation and communication technolo-
gies. This view places the accessibility theme in a central position for the transpor-
tation and communication planning of cities and regions. She observes how
transport uses of information technologies offer a new order of flexibility for
automobile users and a new order of uncertainty for planners. Nonetheless, she
does not foresee an inevitable outcome of deteriorating, uncontrolled environ-
mental change. She reminds us that societies can shape these technologies and
their uses to achieve sustainable environments. Similarly, Occelli (Chapter 17)
sees the policy uses of informed measures and models as meriting a high priority
in the research agenda of regional science and planning. Enhanced measurement
tools and modeling concepts may open the way and the willingness to use infor-
mation technologies to address issues of social equity, imbalances in regional eco-
nomic development, and threats to the sustainability of local and global
environments.
 Part I

Conceptualization and Measurement

2 Conceptualizing and Measuring Accessibility
within Physical and Virtual Spaces

Helen Couclelis 1 and Arthur Getis 2

I Department of Geography, University of California, Santa Barbara CA 93106-4060, USA.

Email: cook@geog.ucsb.edu
2 Department ofGeography, San Diego State University, San Diego CA 92182-4493, USA.
Email: arthur.getis@sdsu.edu

2.1 Introduction

The study of accessibility in geography and related disciplines has a distinguished

history dating back to Ravenstein's work over a century ago. In the late 1940s to
the 1960s, scholars such as Zipf, Stewart, Wamtz, and Wilson theorized about the
way individuals and aggregates of individuals respond to the constraints of cost,
time, and effort to access work, shopping, recreation, and other spatially distrib-
uted opportunities. Since that time accessibility has been closely related to but also
distinguished from such key geographie concepts as mobility, nearness, and the
friction of distance. The models developed for its study belong for the most part in
a large class of constructs known as spatial interaction models because they repre-
sent the patterns and intensity of interactions among locations in geographie space.
Different forms of spatial interaction models have been successfully used to study
accessibility at the aggregate level, while the study of individual movements in
space-time has provided insights into the significance of accessibility in people's
daily lives. One of the most robust findings of modem quantitative geography has
been that interactions decline sharply with increasing distance, which is another
way of saying that there is less and less contact between or among people or
places as these become less and less accessible from one another. These kinds of
models have proved extremely useful not only for understanding how people are
spatially related to their economic and social activities, but also for the help they
gave planners in designing transportation systems and land use structures that sat-
isty general accessibility needs.
Recent technological and societal developments require us to rethink the con-
cept of accessibility at all scales. In technologically advanced societies, there is
mounting evidence that urban areas are being restructured and that many kinds of
social relations are being re-shaped as the new communication and information
technologies increasingly permeate society, culture, and the economy at all scales.
Moreover, the meaning of accessibility itself appears to be changing, as individu-
als or groups increasingly are able to access far-away people, goods and services
16 H. Couclelis and A. Getis

without recourse to physical movement. It would appear that mobility, nearness,

and the friction of distance no longer are a necessary part of the definition of ac-
cessibility; or rather, that accessibility in physical space is now being comple-
mented by accessibility in virtual space, which seems to defY basic principles of
spatial interaction. Researchers and planners thus have to deal with something of a
paradox: just as the data and technical tools required for more thorough explora-
tions of urban and regional phenomena become widely available, there is serious
concern that the trusted concepts and models of yesterday may be letting them
down. Most authors in this section seem to agree that given appropriately updated
and operational definitions of accessibility, geographic information science can
play a leading role in helping us understand, explain, and perhaps even predict
some of the actual and potential implications of the new technologies for the spa-
tial organization of our cities and regions.
Three recurring major themes emerge from the chapters in this section. First,
issues surrounding the diverse conceptualizations, definitions, and measures of
accessibility; second, the distinction between individual and aggregate accessibil-
ity; and third, the changing spatial relations within the information society itself,
and their reciprocal relationships with changing accessibility conditions. Such
issues for the most part have been raised in traditional accessibility research. It is
weIl known that problems of definition have limited the effectiveness of accessi-
bility measures and inhibited their successful application in planning. EquaIly
troublesome have been the issues of potential versus revealed accessibility, of
structure versus agency, of the demand versus the supply view of accessibility,
and several more. However, the societal and technological developments of the
information age tend to add new dimensions to the old dilemmas.

2.2 Conceptualizations, Definitions, and Measures of

Accessibility

Accessibility has always been an elusive concept. As Scott notes, accessibility is

not a distinct physical entity easily counted or measured, ' . . . it is a concept, a
perception, something each one of us will experience, evaluate, or judge differ-
ently.' (Scott, Chapter 3, p. 28).
Accessibility is indeed a relative and contextual notion, and the 'correct' defini-
tion largely depends on the scope and context of the investigation. It is unlikely
that any particular definition will satisfY aIl research and policy needs. Thus a first
task would be to survey the main types of situations within which the question of
accessibility arises and clarifY the meanings and role of the term within these con-
texts. Several new problem contexts arise in the information age: differential ac-
cess by economic, educational and cultural background, as weIl as by geographic
location and socioeconomic group, to the technologies aIlowing virtual access;
 Conceptualizing and Measuring Accessibility 17

access within cyberspace; the possibility to substitute virtual for physical access;
the comparative quality ofthe access experience in case of substitution; and so on.
Another problem is that accessibility has often been treated as a purely spatial
issue. Yet individual scheduling of activities is not only a spatially constrained
process but one that is also strongly time dependent. More than ever before, acces-
sibility should be approached as a time-space phenomenon. While the idea is not
new (it goes back to Hägerstrand and the 1950s), it has new implications at an age
when virtually instant access to so me opportunities frees up considerable time and
thus enables access to others. The scheduling of activities may no longer be con-
strained by the spatial logic of multi-purpose trips, or the temporal constraints of
business hours. New temporal constraints come into playas we access people and
places in very different time zones across the globe - and so on. It is thus with re-
lief that we see in the paper by Forer and Huisman that the familiar time-
geography framework developed by Hägerstrand can be extended to take into ac-
count so me of these novel situations. It is unclear whether it can be equally weil
adapted to all ofthem.
Among more recently formulated concepts, a particularly useful one appears to
be that of proximal space. This defines a place as part of its (physical or func-
tional) vicinity and thus allows us to see places in the context of the other places
with which they interact (or to/from which they are accessible). In traditional geo-
graphic terminology, proximal space embodies both the site and situational char-
acteristics of locations. For example, a site may provide good bus service to a set
of other locations that together constitute its proximal space from the point of
view of physical accessibility; or it may provide the means to connect to the Inter-
net, allowing users to access specific other locations that together help form the
proximal space for these users at that particular location. How can we compare
these two instances of proximity or accessibility? In her paper (Chapter 3), Scott
makes creative use of the proximal space notion to compare accessibility in physi-
cal versus functional space in the Los Angeles area. Proximal space (characterized
by various degrees of proximity) is also implicit in Heikkila's geographic juzzy
clubs (Chapter 6), where greater accessibility (however defined) to a place is rep-
resented as a higher degree ofmembership in a corresponding 'club'.
Scott (Chapter 3) and Shen (Chapter 4) make some ofthese abstract ideas more
concrete by focusing on the role of new technologies in affecting accessibility for
employment. With still small but increasing numbers of people turning to tele-
commuting, models must be able to indicate what employment opportunities are
reachable (physically, virtually, or both ways) by a person at a given location. A
composite measure of accessibility devised by Shen takes into account the varying
mix of physical and virtual accessibility to jobs for Boston residents. The model
presented by Scott combines a traditional spatial interaction model with the Gt
local statistic devised by Getis and Ord (1992) to shed new light on the notorious
spatial mismatch phenomenon (a classic case of deficient accessibility) in the Los
Angeles area. Unlike its predecessors, Scott's model can be extended to the study
of accessibility to employment in virtual and hybrid (physical and virtual com-
bined) spaces.
18 H. Couclelis and A. Getis

As they should, the chapters in this section raise a number of questions, some
very theoretical, others very practical and technical. To what extent do we need
new concepts and measures of accessibility, rather than adaptations of existing
concepts and measures? What theoretical criteria might guide prediction or expla-
nation in accessibility research, and what technical criteria might help us choose
among different measurement approaches? Given the obvious relevance of geo-
graphie information science and technology, how can GIS functions and opera-
tions be used to represent and measure the expanded notions of accessibility
discussed here? And how can other promising formalisms (e.g., local statistics,
fuzzy set theory) enhance the usefulness of GIS for accessibility research?

2.3 The Distinction Between Individual and Aggregate

Accessibility

A recurrent theme in the papers is the problem of scale. This is expressed as either
the micro-macro problem in a spatial context or the individual-based versus ag-
gregate measure problem more generally. Disaggregate and aggregate-level meas-
ures serve different functions; each allows for different types of questions. The
behavioral, decision-making strengths of the micro approach are often undermined
by the unavailability of individual data. The aggregate approach, while meeting
many analytical requirements (e.g., more manageable sampie sizes) is by its nature
limited to the study of problems dealing with group behavior and averages. The
age-old question of the appropriate spatial resolution continues to be debated. The
debate is complicated by the apparent space-lessness (and scale-lessness) of many
of the newer telecommunications and information technologies. Multi-scale or
scale-free approaches to analysis do not necessarily do justice to the complex ef-
fects ofthe new technologies on accessibility and human interaction.
The papers presented in this section provide some promising clues. Several of
them successfully accomplish the transition from individual to aggregate and from
local to metropolitan levels of analysis. The approach presented by Forer and Hu-
isman (Chapter 4) models individual access to educational opportunities as opera-
tional trajectories within time-space prisms, and then generalizes these into
aggregate patterns of accessibility for the student population. Heikkila's idea of
fuzzy clubs also appears to bridge the gap between individual circumstances and
the characteristics of clubs with respect to accessibility for their membership. Still,
the micro/macro problem in complex systems, as urban and regional systems in-
variably are, reaches beyond the issues of aggregation and scale. A very important
related aspect is that of emergent properties and behavior. As an example, it is
well known that the individual increase in accessibility afforded by widespread
automobile ownership in North American cities resulted in urban structures char-
acterized by low overall accessibility scores. What the corresponding emergent
phenomena for the information-age city may be, is anybody's guess. Further, by
 Conceptualizing and Measuring Accessibility 19

focusing too hard on how best to aggregate individual choices and paths in space-
time, one may lose sight of the fact that these choices and paths themselves are to
a large extent socially constructed (more simply put, enabled and constrained by
aggregate behavior and its spatial consequences). Finally, we should keep in mind
that a large part of urban structure may be explained not by the accessibility needs
of individuals but by their distancing needs, as they strive to avoid the vicinity of
less desirable groups, land uses or environments. While these centrifugal tenden-
cies have always been present, the technological and organizational possibilities of
the information age may greatly amplify these phenomena.

2.4 Chan ging Spatial Relations

Inevitably, we will need to move beyond physical proximity in our representations

of accessibility in order to understand how old and new kinds of spatial relations
come together in post-industrial landscapes. Some key questions suggest them-
selves: How are the traditional spatial relations studied in socioeconomic geogra-
phy responding to new conditions of access to goods, services and information?
What new kinds of relations are replacing, complementing, or otherwise affecting
traditional spatial relations? What other spatial and non-spatial relations become
especially important in the information age? The papers in this section hint at
these kinds of questions, which are more thoroughly explored in Part III of this
book.
At the root ofmany ofthe spatial changes taking place in the post-industrial city
is the increasing dissociation between places and functions: activities are becom-
ing more and more person-based rather than place-based, so that where you are is
less and less a reliable indication of what you may be doing. The assumption of a
strong structural correspondence between spatial and functional relations, on
which much of traditional socio-economic geography is based, can no longer be
taken for granted. At the Asilomar workshop several novel (and at times quite
exotic) concepts were proposed by participants grappling with these new types of
spatial relations: places as networks; the extensible individual; 'wormholes' in
functional space, like tunnels in space-time allowing instant access to activities at
physically distant places; 'real virtualities' as weIl as virtual realities, recreating at
a place the feel or function of processes taking place elsewhere. Papers in this sec-
tion directly or indirectly raise more down-to-earth questions regarding spatial
relations. What interactions must remain spatial and thus continue affecting spatial
structure the old-fashioned way? What are the social costs and benefits of vastly
increased opportunities of interaction within the functional/physical continuum,
and how does that structure of opportunities vary over space? How is the quality
of interaction affected for different kinds of functions when the spatial relation is
by-passed? Last but not least: What is the practical relevance of defining and
measuring accessibility when spatial relations no longer necessarily correspond to
20 H. Couclelis and A. Getis

the most important functional relations? Here Daniei Sui (Chapter 7) gives a par-
ticularly provocative answer. He argues that we may be barking up the wrong tree
by focusing on a mechanistic notion such as accessibility, when the evolutionary
notion of adaptability may be much better suited to the fluid, flexible, immaterial
and strongly cognition-oriented types of relations fostered by the information age.
To the extent that further research on accessibility is worth pursuing, there is
consensus that the focus should be on a generalized notion of accessibility as
process taking place in physical, virtual, or hybrid (physical/virtual) spaces. As
Occelli (see Chapter 17) notes, accessibility as a concept has always occupied the
intersection of physical and functional (including virtual) spaces, the place where
the socio-economic relations woven in functional space touch ground, and where
the spatial relations still constrain the functional. Studying that intersection has
always been a considerable challenge, because functional space potentially has
indefinitely more dimensions than physical (geographie) space. The difficulty in-
creases manifold in the information age with the appearance of virtual space,
which shares properties of both the physical and the functional. Thus the challenge
will be to find consistent conceptualizations that can handle the dynamic intercon-
nectedness of physical, functional, and virtual relations over space, as weB as the
infinite capacity of individuals and societies to both adapt to and modifY the ever-
changing contexts of their interactions.

References
Getis, A. and Ord, J.K. 1992. The analysis of spatial autocorrelation by use of distance
statisties. Geographical Analysis 24(3): 189-206.
3 Evaluating Intra-metropolitan Accessibility
in the Information Age: Operation al Issues,
Objectives, and Implementation

Lauren M. Scott

Environmental Systems Research Institute, 380 New York Street, Redlands CA 92373,
USA. Email: LScott@ESRI.com

3.1 Introduction

Suburbanization, economic restructuring, globalization, and rapid developments in

transportation and telecommunications technologies have had dramatie impacts on
the urban landscape, fundamentally altering the spatial and organizational compo-
sition of where we work and where we live. How have these broad spatial proc-
esses impacted intra-metropolitan accessibility? How are these impacts expressed
physically on the urban landscape? Who, in terms of both geographie location and
socioeconomic groups, is affected? How? What are the implications for urban
development and planning policy?
The emergence of the multicentric metropolis - within the context of globaliza-
tion, economic restructuring, suburbanization, and rapid technological develop-
ments - has prompted these and other questions relating to intra-metropolitan
accessibility. Some researchers argue that since transportation and communica-
tions are already so highly developed in most U.S. cities, physical accessibility has
become somewhat ubiquitous (Giuliano 1995, Chintz 1991). These technologies
have developed unevenly over time and space, however, creating a complex
patchwork of different spaces associated with disparate, sometimes contradictory,
patterns of intra-metropolitan accessibility (Graham and Marvin 1996, 322).
While on the one hand advances in telecommunications and transportation tech-
nologies allow individuals to extend their geographie reach, on the other they fa-
cilitate consolidation and dispersion of urban activities. For individuals lacking
access to computers, to automobiles, or even to effective public transit, the ever-
expanding spatial separation facilitated by technological developments may serve
to diminish, rather than to enhance, intra-metropolitan accessibility.
Notions about intra-metropolitan accessibility provide the basis for a variety of
urban policy and transportation planning decisions; they represent key compo-
nents in urban economic theory relating to land use and urban development; they
serve as a common focus for geographie research concerned with economic
growth, transportation patterns and infrastructure, metropolitan form, urban effi-
ciency, and social equity. Despite the centrality of these ideas to urban research
22 L.M. Scott

agendas, accessibility remains a difficult construct to both operationalize and de-

fine (Pirie 1979, Helling 1996). The challenges become more pronounced in the
information age where access to urban activities and spatial opportunities is no
longer necessarily constrained by physical space, but increasingly takes place via
electronic telecommunications networks.
This chapter suggests an analytical framework for evaluating and monitoring
changes in intra-metropolitan accessibility associated with broad urban restructur-
ing processes. The chapter is structured into three sections. The first section re-
views operational issues associated with measuring and modeling intra-
metropolitan accessibility. Section two outlines the proposed analytical frame-
work. The final section applies this analytical framework to employment data in
the Greater Los Angeles region. Three different analyses are presented, each high-
lighting a specific component of intra-metropolitan accessibility: (1) urban spatial
structure; (2) transportation infrastructure; and (3) the complex attributes (the re-
sources, individual constraints, and preferences) associated with different groups
of individuals. The objective of this final section is not to fully analyze the Los
Angeles data set, but to demonstrate the effectiveness, flexibility, and potential of
the proposed analytical framework for addressing a wide variety of research ques-
tions, for contributing to urban theory, and for evaluating urban planning strate-
gies.

3.2 Operational Issues

This section of the chapter reviews the accessibility literature in order to identifY
definitional and representational issues related to operationalizing an effective
analytical framework for evaluating intra-metropolitan accessibility.

Defining Accessibility

Accessibility ... is a slippery notion ... one of those COinmon terms that everyone uses
until faced with the problem of defining and measuring it (Gould 1969, 64).

A large body of formal urban theory contends that accessibility is at the very core
of processes shaping urban spatial structure: people choose residential locations
that satisfY both housing needs and workplace access, and employers choose work
locations that are accessible to employees, urban infrastructure, and consumer
markets (Giuliano 1995,3). Consequently, many researchers indicate that the con-
cept of accessibility is fundamental to definitions and explanations of urban form,
function, and efficiency, arguing that a location's access to economic and social
opportunities largely determines its value, development intensity, and economic,
social, and political uses (Wachs and Kumagai 1973,438; Knox 1980,368; Koe-
nig 1980, 169).
 Intra-metropolitan Aeeessibility 23

It is not surprising, therefore, to find the term accessibility appearing frequently

in local, regional, and national documents; accessibility is commonly cited as a
fundamental objective for urban and transportation planning. Nonetheless, the
concept of accessibility is seldom given an operational definition in these docu-
ments, and accessibility measures are rarely used to monitor urban system per-
formance, to construct regional profiles, to compile social inventories, or to
evaluate proposed planning strategies (Knox 1980, 367).
On the other hand, the concept of accessibility, and a variety of different meas-
ures, has been applied liberally in research studies. Within these studies accessibil-
ity takes on a large number of different definitions. The concept of accessibility,
for example, has been used to describe the physical proximity between two or
more locations 1, to represent the freedom of individuals to participate in urban
activities 2, and to reflect the set of activity sites or opportunities available at par-
ticular locations in space3 (Bums 1979). A review of the literature on accessibility
measurement reveals three primary issues relating to definition:

(1) Potential vs. Outcome. At a very broad level, measures of accessibility may
be grouped into one of two definitional categories (Breheny 1978): potential
measures and outcome measures. Potential measures consider accessibility to be a
property of specific locations or individuals, and may involve counting spatial
opportunities and/or measuring distances between origins and destinations, but
they do not incorporate actual travel behavior, or use observed travel flows to
calibrate or to simulate measure components. Isochronic accessibility measures,
for example, define accessibility in terms of the total number of spatial opportuni-
ties within a specified distance or time cost of a particular location i, regardless of
whether or not individuals at i actually use these spatial opportunities. These po-
tential measures define accessibility in terms of the potential for spatial interac-
tion.
Outcome measures, on the other hand, define accessibility in terms of behavior,
as expressed through observed travel patterns. These outcome approaches consider
proof of accessibility to be a function of realized accessibility - the actual use of
services or actual participation in activities surrounding specific origins (Morris,
Dumble, and Wigan 1979, 92). Network models of accessibility relying on actual
travel flows to identifY highly accessible nodes, for example, reflect this outcome
definition of accessibility.
Spatial interaction models - the most commonly used accessibility measures -
incorporate elements of both the potential and the outcome definitional categories.
While these accessibility measures generally define accessibility in terms of the

1 See Ingram (1971), Haynes and Fotheringharn (1984), and Iones (1981).
2 For example, Hanson and Sehwab (1987) examine the link between aeeessibility and in-
dividual travel behavior using data from Uppsala, Sweden.
3 Knox (1980), for example, investigates aeeessibility to primary medieal eare in Edin-
burgh, Seotland, ultimately ereating a map showing both under- and over-servieed re-
gions.
24 L.M. Scott

potential for spatial interaction, they calibrate model parameters using actual
travel behavior (the outcome-measure strategy).
Whenever accessibility models rely on actual travel behavior, either directly or
for model calibration, it becomes troublesome to disentangle structure from
agency. Suppose, for example, we find that journey-to-work distances have in-
creased. Using an outcome definition of accessibility (i.e., using actual travel
flows), it is difficult to determine whether the longer commutes are the result of
improved accessibility (an improved transportation system, for example, may pro-
vide access to better jobs or to better hornes at a farther distance away) or whether
the longer commutes are the result of diminished accessibility (workers may be
required to travel farther because suitable employment or housing is just not avail-
able nearby) (Knox 1980, 369).

(2) Mobility vs. Accessibility. Handy (1994) notes that accessibility has only
recently become a focus in transportation planning. Traditionally, transportation
planners have emphasized mobility and infrastructure performance over concerns
about accessibility. Mobility refers to the ease of movement or the physical ability
to transcend space (facilitated travel), and encompasses monitoring the infrastruc-
ture for travel (road capacities, speed limits, and congestion, for example). Acces-
sibility, on the other hand, extends this concept of mobility, to include
examination of the context for travel (Helling 1998). Travel is rarely undertaken
for the sake of movement alone, but instead takes place within specific contexts
(Hans on 1998), motivated by the desire or need to satisfy a variety of economic,
social, or psychological objectives (Wachs and Kumagai 1973,439). The concept
of accessibility fully encompasses this notion of context, extending the scope of
concern associated with mobility to inc1ude the spatial/temporal opportunities
provided at destinations and the social, economic, political, and psychological
capability to reach destinations (Handy 1994). As a planning goal, then, a focus on
accessibility reflects a broader, more inc1usive concept that has advantages over an
exclusive focus on mobility.

(3) Definitional Components. Whenever we model the concept of accessibility,

we are implicitly asking three questions: Accessibility to what?, By whom?, and
How? Destination choices, access costs for different individuals, and mode of
access, each represent important components of accessibility (Handy 1994, 5). A
review of the accessibility measurement literature, however, suggests it is rather
difficult to integrate this full range of accessibility elements; rarely are more than
one or two of these components incorporated into accessibility scores. Consider
the example of measuring accessibility to employment opportunities. With many
accessibility models, accessibility scores will increase as job counts increase, re-
gardless ofvariations in the number ofworkers competing for jobs. 4 Formulations
attempting to integrate worker supply into the accessibility index often muddy

4 Consider 3 isolated grid cells, each with 100 jobs. Even ifthe first cell has no workers, the
second has 100 workers, and the last has 1000 workers, scores for all three cells will be
equal, for many accessibility models.
 Intra-metropolitan Accessibility 25

interpretation so it becomes difficult to determine if a particular index is high be-

cause of opportunity magnitude, population magnitude, or effective transport. Too
often, one unit of opportunity substitutes directly for one unit of travel cost - each
component is given equal weighting. These problems can limit the effectiveness of
accessibility measures for informing urban planning policy. Accessibility scores
based solelyon job counts, for example, will assign a high accessibility score to
job-rich regions. Regions such as Downtown Los Angeles have extremely high
job counts and will, therefore, receive high accessibility scores. Does this mean
that all of our communities should be encouraged to replicate the Downtown pat-
terns? It seems more appropriate to define accessibility in terms of level-of-service
- in terms of how weil a given location serves surrounding populations. In the
Case of accessibility to employment, for example, if the jobs provided at a given
location effectively match worker demand, and the linkages connecting them have
sufficient capacity, a high accessibility score is appropriate.

Modeling Accessibility

A number of researchers have suggested using GIS to model intra-metropolitan

accessibility (Kwan 1998, Miller 1991, Arentze, Borgers, and Timmermans 1994,
Geertman and Ritsema Van Eck, 1995). Couclelis cautions, however, that the GIS
environment presents a very specific representation of space (1991). GIS are
geared toward spatial objects and an absolute or container view of space; they
emphasize site characteristics over situation characteristics5 . Consequently, the
end result of any combination of GIS operations will typically involve information
relating to specific locations or to specific spatial objects (points, lines, areas, or
volumes). GIS are limited in their ability to represent non-Iocalized spatial proc-
esses inherent in spatial organization, configuration, pattern, spatial dynamics,
restructuring, transformation, or change (Couclelis 1991, 15).
At a more general level, Sheppard (1996) discusses the concepts of site and
situation in relation to local context. He notes that the concept of local context is
critical for explaining why seemingly similar processes may lead to very different
outcomes in different places. Unfortunately, when places are modeled as discrete
containers, and the concept of local context is narrowly defined in terms of site
characteristics only, the possibility for action at a distance - the possibility for
objects or phenomena, such as information flows, to effect local context - is ig-
nored. Sheppard (1996) suggests a broadening of the concept of local context to
incorporate both site and situation characteristics.
The merging of both site and situation characteristics within a GIS environment,
however, is not a straightforward undertaking. At issue is the fundamental conflict
between two very different conceptualizations of space: absolute space and rela-

5 Where site characteristics reflect the attributes and qualities of particular locations or spa-
tial objects, situation characteristics reflect each location's embeddedness within a
broader spatial structure involving other locations and other spatial objects.
26 L.M. Scott

tive space6 . Couc1elis (1991; 1997) has developed the idea of proximal space as a
way to bridge these two concepts. Where absolute space emphasizes the locational
coordinates and attribute characteristics of site, and relative space emphasizes the
spatial relations associated with situation, the key notion in proximal space is the
neighborhood (Couc1elis 1997, 170). This notion of neighborhood - neither static
nor restricted to physical contiguity - reflects Sheppard's extended concept of
local context.
Proximal space emphasizes spatial dependenee in the form of loeal interactions
where loeal interactions may be relevant from three different perspeetives: spatial
proximity, funetional proximity, and statistical spatial dependency. Spatial prox-
imity reflects the physieal spatial relationships associated with a loeal site and its
neighbors. Funetional proximity reflects relationships based on influence or inter-
action. Statistieal spatial dependence refleets the eohesion and homogeneity of a
site and its neighbors.
Most spatial interaction aeeessibility models incorporate both a site and a situa-
tion eomponent (typically a spatial opportunities variable and a distance or imped-
anee variable). They are inadequate for representing intra-metropolitan
aecessibility and the proximal space construet, however, on at least two grounds:

(1) Sc ale. As with GIS operations, most spatial interaction models present intra-
metropolitan aceessibility as a single score or indicator for each loeation of inter-
est. This score reflects a loeation's absolute site attributes on the one hand, and its
situation relative to other loeations and their attributes on the other. The eoneept of
accessibility, however, is more realistically represented as a proeess or function of
spaee, time, and technology. Individuals may trade-off time and distanee, or may
utilize telecommunieations technologies, to gain aecess to spatial opportunities at
a distance. Space, time and available technology, therefore, funetion as struetures,
which both constrain and enable human aetivities. With spatial interaction aeees-
sibility models, these struetures are implemented by discounting spatial opportuni-
ties by an impedanee faetor. For any given location i, the result is a single
indieator representing so me quantity of whole opportunities assoeiated with loea-
tion i itself, plus some quantity of partial opportunities distributed various dis-
tanees away. Interpretation is awkward. This strategy of diseounting spatial
opportunities is not entirely effective for representing the spatial dynamies of in-
tra-metropolitan aecessibility with ehanges in seale or with movements through
spaee.

6 From the absolute or Newtonian perspective, space is represented as a distinct entity with
characteristics similar to a system of pigeonholes or containers (Lawton 1983, 197). It is
conceptualized as emptiness - an entity with existence independent of matter, possessing
the structure to hold or to individuate phenomena - a universal receptacle in which objects
exist and events occur (Smith 1984; Harvey 1973). From the relative or Liebnitz perspec-
tive, on the other hand, space is an abstract concept reflecting the spatial relationships be-
tween perceived objects, endowed with structure and properties that are intimately tied to
process (Lawton 1983, 197; Couclelis 1992,221).
 Intra-metropolitan Accessibility 27

(2) Proximity. Most spatial interaction accessibility models include an impedance

component, typically reflecting the friction of time, distance, or some other travel
cost. With rapid developments in a broad range of spatial technologies 7, however,
spatial relations become much more complex and these impedance functions be-
come rather limiting. Gatrell (1983, 5) reminds us that despite a proliferation of
urban models with a time or distance component in geography, time or distance
themselves do not have causal properties. Instead, it is the implications of time
and distance that have consequences, and it is these implications that are being
modified by rapid developments in transportation and telecommunications tech-
nologies.
Gatrell (1983, 7) notes that there is an almost infinite number of relations asso-
ciated with any given set of spatial objects - physical distance is only one, fairly
constrained type of relation. He refers to these relations as proximities, distin-
guishing between attribute proximities and interaction proximities. Attribute prox-
imities define relations between two or more locations based on attribute profiles
(income, racial, or occupational profiles, for example). Defining relations using
attribute proximities, location itself and the distances separating different locations
are immaterial. In contrast, interaction proximities define relations between two or
more locations on the basis of spatial interaction volumes (social networks, jour-
ney-to-work trips, commodity flows, for example). Here, location and distance are
central components of the relations defined for a set of spatial objects. Within the
proximal space construct (Couclelis 1997), these relations may be operationalized
as aseries of functions, heuristics or other symbols linking each location to every
other location under study. This same flexibility would be difficult to attain using
traditional spatial interaction accessibility models.

Context

It is important to recognize that many of the specific operational details (defini-

tionai, representational, and methodologieal) associated with measuring intra-
metropolitan accessibility are necessarily influenced by the scope and overall ob-
jectives of the research study at hand. For the purposes of this chapter, I am spe-
cifically interested in understanding how broad spatial processes of economic
restructuring, suburbanization, and rapid technological developments are impact-

7 Couclelis (1994) coined the term spatial technologies in reference to the bundle oftrans-
portation, communication, and information technologies that, in conjunction, modify spa-
tial relations.
28 L.M. Scott

ing urban spatial structure 8 and in how these impacts affect intra-metropolitan
accessibility. The proposed analytical framework, therefore, presents an aggre-
gate-level analysis rather than focusing on impacts associated with any one indi-
vidual (disaggregate-Ievel analysis). These broad structural changes have
important implications for urban and transportation planning. In addition, results
from this type of aggregate-level analysis can provide an effective springboard for
more detailed, disaggregate-Ievel analyses of intra-metropolitan accessibility.

3.3 Analytical Framework

This section of the chapter presents an analytical framework for measuring intra-
metropolitan accessibility. The framework is based on a level-of-service definition
of accessibility, the Couclelis (1997) proximal space construct, and the Getis/Ord
Gt statistic (Getis and Ord 1992, Ord and Getis 1995).

Conceptualizing Accessibility

While accessibility need not be considered a physical entity - it is a concept, a

perception, something each of us experiences, evaluates, or judges differently -
the proposed analytical framework gives the concept of accessibility substance by
defining accessibility to be a characteristic, or attribute, of proximal space. From
this perspective, accessibility is a multi-dimensional attribute (see Hanson, Chap-
ter 16) of the proximal spaces defined for any given urban activity system. It is
multi-dimensional because the concept of accessibility comprises both structural
and functional elements, encompassing both potential accessibility and realized
accessibility. The structural elements of accessibility comprise the spatial distribu-
tion of people and opportunities, as weH as the transportation and communications
infrastructure connecting them. Functional elements of accessibility comprise the
variety of attributes associated with different groups of individuals (their re-
sources, aptitudes, constraints, preferences, ingenuity, etc.) that lead to different
patterns of realized accessibility. These structural and functional dimensions of
accessibility operate over multiple spatial scales through processes inherently tied

8 In theory, urban spatial structure may be defined in terms ofthe spatial relationships link-
ing a region's urban activities (employment, schools, medical facilities, public services,
and/or recreational activities) to the spatial distribution of a region's inhabitants (Pred
1977, 10; Simpson 1987, 120). In the examples presented in the next section, however, I
limit this definition of urban spatial structure to a focus on the spatial relationships be-
tween employment opportunities and workers by place of residence. I emphasize accessi-
bility to employment opportunities because employment represents a fundamental
component of the urban landscape and has been directly impacted by the broad spatial
processes of economic restructuring, suburbanization, and rapid technological deve1op-
ments.
 Intra-metropolitan Accessibility 29

to space, time, and available teehnology. The empirieal analyses presented in the
next seetion, therefore, define loeal interactions - the proximal spaee eonstruet -
using a variety of travel eosts. This approach is adopted in order to highlight the
spatial dynamies of intra-metropolitan aeeessibility assoeiated with ehanges in
seale, and to refleet the idea that individuals may trade-off time and distanee to
gain aeeess to opportunities at a distanee. The statistieal framework used to meas-
ure both struetural and funetional aeeessibility, and to model the proximal spaee
eonstruet is deseribed next.

The Getis/Ord Gi' Statistic

The Getis/Ord Gi' statistie measures the degree of association or spatial clustering
assoeiated with a single variable (X) distributed over a spatial surfaee (Getis and
Ord 1992; Ord and Getis 1995). Consider an urban landscape divided into n re-
gions, i = 1, 2, ... , n, where eaeh region is identified with a loeation whose Carte-
sian coordinates are known. Eaeh loeation i has assoeiated with it a value Xi of the
variable X. Eaeh value, Xi, is affiliated with a set of neighbors - a set of Xj values -
where the neighborhood is defined by a spatial weights matrix (typieally a binary,
one/zero matrix). The spatial weights matrix is square, with row and eolumn en-
tries for eaeh pair of loeations i and j. As one example, a binary spatial weights
matrix may define loeal interactions - the neighborhood - in terms of physieal
distanee: a 2-mile-distanee radius, for example. Eaeh row, then, would be associ-
ated with eolumn entries of either one or zero: values of one would refleet mem-
bership in the neighborhood, and would be assoeiated with all loeations j within a
2-mile-distanee radius of loeation i, including the diagonal where j=i (footnote9 ).
The Gi' statistie may be written as follows (Ord and Getis 1995):

where:

Gi'(d) = the Gi' score for a partieular distanee (or other neighborhood member-
ship eriteria), d.
wij{ d) = the spatial weights matrix for a partieular distanee (or other neighbor-
hood membership eriteria), d
Xj = the spatial variable, X, being measured at loeation j, where j may equal i
l--4J' = the sum of eolumn entries for row i ofthe spatial weights matrix
X = the mean for all Xj observations

9 The Gi" and Gi formulations differ in the way the neighborhood is defined. With Gi' j may
equal i; for the Gi formulation, however, the spatial weights matrix has a zero for each di-
agonal entry. This distinction results in slight differences in the way the Gi" and Gi formu-
lations are ca1culated (see Ord and Getis 1995).
30 L.M. Scott

s = the square root of the variance for all Xj observations

n = the total number of observations
S1i = the sum of squared column entries for row i of the spatial weights matrix lO

The Gi< statistic compares local neighborhood averages to the global average for
a given variable X in a defined study region. Where high values of X (high in rela-
tion to the global me an) cluster together, Gi< scores will be positive; where low
values of X cluster together, Gi< scores will be negative. These Gi< scores may be
interpreted as standard normal deviations where the expectation is zero and the
variance is one (Ord and Getis 1995). To understand why the Gi< statistic is effec-
tive for measuring intra-metropolitan accessibility, however, it is necessary to
consider how perfeet accessibility might express itself on the urban landscape, and
further, to consider how specific aspects of the urban landscape may serve to de-
tract from this notion of perfection.
Whenever we deal with accessibility, we are implicitly confronting a situation
involving both supply and demand. When measuring accessibility to employment
opportunities, however, this distinction becomes blurred. From the employers'
perspective, demand is reflected by a need for workers to fill particular jobs, and
the number ofworkers available represents supply. From the workers' perspective,
demand reflects a need for jobs, while the number of jobs available represents
supply. One approach to resolution is to measure accessibility by level-of-service.
Suppose we define a spatial opportunities variable (X) to reflect both jobs and
workers ll .

Let:

ei = the number ofjobs (employment opportunities) at location i

E = the total number of jobs in the entire study region
Ui = the number ofworkers, by residence, at location i
U = the total number of workers in the entire study region.

Now define each Xi as follows:

Notice that if location i contains 10 percent of the region's jobs and 10 percent
of the region's workers, Xi will equal o. If, however, location i contains a larger
proportion of jobs than workers, Xi will be positive. Positive Xi values reflect loca-

10 The spatial weights matrix need not be binary. When it is binary, S1i< is equal to vv;<.
11 This 'level-of-service' definition for accessibility is appropriate because the relationship
between jobs and workers is represented as a simple one-to-one correspondence. Measur-
ing accessibility to other types of services (retail or medical facilities, for example), may
require different level-of-service formulations.
 Intra-metropolitan Accessibility 31

tions where employers have less than perfect accessibility to potential employees.
Similarly, negative Xi values reflect locations offering workers less than perfect
accessibility to potential employment opportunities. By defining accessibility in
terms of how weil a particular location serves surrounding populations, both the
employers' and the workers' perspectives on accessibility are represented l2 .
This notion of perfeet accessibility needs further clarification, however, as it
provides a primary justification for using the Gi' statistic - a measure of spatial
association - to measure intra-metropolitan accessibility. Imagine a highly urban-
ized hypothetical landscape exhibiting the following, quite unrealistic, characteris-
tics: (1) all jobs and all workers are evenly distributed throughout the study
region; (2) each location i is connected to every other location j by an equivalent
and effective transportation network; and (3) all jobs and workers within the study
region have identical characteristics: workers have identical preferences, levels of
mobility, skills, etc., and jobs offer equivalent working environments and wages.
In this hypothetical landscape, no matter what our scale of analysis, or how space
is partitioned into discrete zones (census tracts, for example), worker proportions
will match job proportions and the spatial opportunities variable (X), as defined
above, will consistently tend toward zero. This hypothetical landscape reflects a
notion of 'perfect' accessibility defined in terms of level-ofservice or social eq-
uity; each worker in the study area has similar accessibility to the region's em-
ployment opportunities. Now let us relax each of the assumptions given above.
Urban landscapes, generally, are not associated with evenly distributed jobs and
workers. Instead, they are typically structured into a mosaic of residential and in-
dustrial land uses. Where job-rich (worker-poor) sites intermingle with worker-
rich (job-poor) sites, worker shortages at one location may balance job shortages
at locations nearby, so that accessibility is maintained. Where job-rich or worker-
rich sites cluster together, however, worker/job shortages are additive. Scale of
analysis is important here. In addition, transportation and communications net-
works develop unevenly over time and space. Where residential neighborhoods
and employment centers are efficiently connected via transportation or telecom-
munications networks, costs 13 to access opportunities at a distance will be smalI;
where there are physical or functional barriers restricting movement or communi-
cations, opportunity costs will be large. Finally, employment outcomes (a firm's
decision to hire an individual or a worker's decision to accept a job offer) are in-
fluenced by a large number of complex individual characteristics and behavioral
factors associated with worker or firm preferences, motivations, aspirations, objec-
tives, social networks, search strategies, and sometimes just plain dumb luck. One

12 This level-of-service variable does not include information regarding commuting pat-
terns.
13 There are, of course, costs associated with operating a vehicle or using public transporta-
tion to overcome distance. Other, traditional costs, may involve the time needed to tran-
scend space (walking to work). Even when telecommunications technologies are
employed, however, there are costs associated with gaining access to appropriate equip-
ment, education, and authority to use these technologies. Many employees, who choose
to telecommute to the workplace, may pay for this convenience in the form of reduced
opportunities for promotion or salary increases as a result of spending large amounts of
time off-site.
32 L.M. Scott

approach to understanding how these complex individual factors play out in the
aggregate, however, is to examine observed journey-to-work travel behavior.
The Gi' statistic presents an effective approach for evaluating intra-metropolitan
accessibility by considering each location i within the context of its proximal loca-
tions j, and determining the degree of spatial clustering associated with job and
worker spatial patterns at multiple scales of analysis. The proximal space relations
reflecting the complex physical and functional connections among sites in the
study area are modeled via the Gi' statistic spatial weights matrix. In the empirical
analyses presented in the next section, the spatial weights matrix is modeled to
reflect Euclidean distances, travel time costs, and functional time costs at multiple
scales of analysis. Functional travel times, derived from actual journey-to-work
travel patterns, are compared to actual travel times, providing insight regarding the
impact changes in transportation and telecommunications technologies are having
on urban spatial structure. These statements are best clarified through the exam-
pies presented in the next section.

3.4 Application

Greater Los Angeles (Figure 3.1) is generally viewed as a region of endless urban
sprawl with widely dispersed population and employment patterns (Giuliano and
Small 1991); the region has been described as the prototypical example of urban
restructuring (Soja, Morales, and Wolff 1983). This study area, therefore, provides
an especially appropriate context for investigating questions relating to intra-
metropolitan accessibility. In this final section of the chapter, the proposed ana-
lytical framework is applied to 1990 employment data for the five county Greater
Los Angeles region 14. Three analyses are presented. While each is performed us-
ing the framework outlined above, the method used to model the relations con-
necting origins (workers by place ofresidence) and destinations Gobs) varies.

14 The study area encompasses most of the urbanized portions of the five-county Greater
Los Angeles region covered by the Southem Califomia Association of Govemments
(SCAG): Los Angeles, Orange, San Bemardino, Riverside and Ventura counties. Em-
ployment data reflecting the number of jobs and the number of resident workers for each
census tract in 1990 were kindly provided by SCAG. Travel-time data and joumey-to-
work travel-flow data were obtained from the 1990 Census Transportation Planning
Package (CTPP) CD-ROM distributed by the V.S. Bureau ofTransportation Statistics.
 Intra-metropolitan Accessibility 33

~. j---- ,.
Oxna~~\

Figure 3.1. The Greater Los Angeles study area.

Spatial Distributions

One approach to evaluating intra-metropolitan accessibility to employment oppor-

tunities is to examine spatial relationships between job locations and resident
workers. In Figures 3.2, 3.3, and 3.4, the Gi" statistic has been applied to the level-
of-service spatial opportunities variable (described in the previous section) using a
spatial weights matrix based on Euclidean distance. In Figure 3.2, each location
(census-tract centroid) is evaluated within the context of its neighbors, where the
neighborhood is defined as those census tracts within a 5-mile distance radius. In
Figure 3.3, the neighborhood is extended to encompass neighbors within a lO-mile
radius. Similarly, the context for analysis in Figure 3.4 is defined using a 15-mile
distance radius. The Gi" statistic measures the statistical spatial dependence of
each neighborhood, reflecting its cohesion and homogeneity. Tracts with positive
Gi" scores are associated with job-rich regions, which, while they may offer good
access to job opportunities for local workers, provide poor access to employers
needing to fill those jobs. Similarly, tracts associated with negative Gi" scores re-
fleet job-poor regions providing insufficient access to employment opportunities
34 L.M. Scott

for local workers. Tracts with scores near zero represent regions offering effective
accessibility to both employers and workers l5 .

:~ !:iI~i~!Et.
... ··::::I:i:lr~::::·:··:::?\:· . : : :.:

•
Accessibility:
III! Very Poor for Workers
::::::::::::::::::::: Poor for Workers
Effective
Poor for Employers
. . Very Poor for Employers

Figure 3.2. Greater Los Angeles, 1990. Accessibility scores based on the spatial distribu-
tion of jobs and workers. Scale of analysis: 5 miles.

In Figure 3.2, using a distance radius of 5 miles, four significant job-rich

(worker-poor) clusters are apparent: the Downtown Los Angeles area, the West-
wood and West Los Angeles area, the Torrance area, and the Santa AnaiAnaheim
area. A number of worker-rich (job-poor) clusters are also discernible, including
the residential communities west of San Bernardino, west of Riverside, and north
of San Fernando. Interestingly, at this scale of analysis, a number of tracts in
South Central Los Angeles are associated with job-poor regions, adjuring further
research addressing spatial mismatch hypotheses.
When the scale of analysis is increased to 10 miles, these spatial patterns be-
come more consolidated. Two job-rich (worker-poor) regions stand out: the
Downtown Los Angeles area and the Santa AnaiAnaheim area in Orange County.
Dominant worker-rich (job-poor) regions are diffuse to the north, east, and south
of these two job-rich clusters. At the 15-mile scale of analysis, however, while the
Downtown Los Angeles job-rich cluster continues to expand, the Orange County
job-rich cluster has disappeared almost completely: the physical spatial relation-
ships between jobs and workers in the Santa AnalAnaheim area are fairly balanced

15 In Figures 3.2, 3.3, 3.4, and 3.6, accessibility designations of very poor are associated
with Gi" scores greater than +2, or less than -2, standard deviations; designations of poor
are associated with Gi" scores ranging from + 1 to +2 or from -1 to -2. Effective ace es si-
bility is associated with Gi" scores between -1 and + 1.
 Intra-metropolitan Accessibility 35

.::':':':-.- ... .......,._---,'

..........
._--- _.,._....._....._._..._.,..
··:::·{:::::tJHJi 1:':::: ...... .
','.'.','

Accessibility:
~ Very Paar far Warkers
i:~'It~/);/
::JJt11 Paar far Warkers
Effective
Paar far Em players
. . Very Paar far Emplayers

Figure 3.3. Greater Los Angeles, 1990. Accessibility scores based on the spatial distribu-
tion of jobs and workers. Scale of analysis: 10 miles.

----CD
.'.~.'.

:.:"-:.::;::~l:::
Accessibility:
~ Very Paar for Warkers
ttt:U}: Paar far Warkers
Effective
Paar far Emplayers
Very Paar far Emplayers

Figure 3.4. Greater Los Angeles, 1990. Accessibility scores based on the spatial distribu-
tion of jobs and workers. Scale of analysis: 15 miles.
36 L.M. Scott

if workers are willing and able to endure 15-mile commutes. At the same time,
however, worker-rich Gob-poor) clustering in the eastern and northern portions of
the study region have become more intense: the job deficiencies in these regions
are additive with increases in scale of analysis.
Analysis is performed at 5, 10, and 15 miles to emphasize the idea that accessi-
bility is not a static score, but a function, or process of space, time, and technolgy.
Consider, for example, the two tracts labeled 1 and 2 in Figure 3.4. Both tracts are
associated with similar accessibility scores when evaluated for a 15-mile distance
radius. Considering only this one score, however, obscures important details about
variations in accessibility with changes in scale. Figure 3.5 graphs the Gi' scores at
5, 10, and 15 miles. For the Orange County tract (labeled 2), accessibility to em-
ployment opportunities increases rapidly if one is willing and able to travel 10 or
15 miles. For the Los Angeles County tract (labeled 1), however, increased travel
offers diminishing returns. Getis (1994) suggests one approach to capturing these
scale-related variations in Gi' scores is to report not only the Gi' scores at multiple
spatial seal es, but to also report the slope associated with these scores.

2.0

1.0

r_ _ _
I/)
~
8
CI) 0.0
iC

c:5 2_______ .. - - - - - --
-1.0
--- • LA Tract
- -. - -oe Tract
-2.0
5 10 15
Miles
Figure 3.5. Variations in accessibility with changes in scale.

Defining the neighborhood by physical distance, as demonstrated in Figures 3.2,

3.3, and 3.4 above, allows us to focus on the spatial distributions of origins and
destinations. This type of analysis may be useful for addressing research questions
dealing with jobs/housing balance or spatial mismatch issues. In addition, this type
of analysis may be extended by disaggregating both jobs and resident workers into
different occupational, raciallethnic, or gender categories in order to evaluate how
sensitive these different categories (groups of individuals) are to employment
proximity. Other research questions may be addressed by re-defining the linkages
connecting origins and destinations; this possibility is discussed next.
 Intra-metropolitan Accessibility 37

Transportation Infrastructure

A second approach to evaluating intra-metropolitan accessibility is to examine the

transportation infrastructure connecting origins and destinations. In Figures 3.2,
3.3, and 3.4, the spatial weights matrix was based on Euclidean distance. In Figure
3.6, local interactions are structured as travel-time isochrones. 16 The median travel
time for all known 5-, 10-, and 15-mile commutes is 18, 25, and 30 minutes, re-
spectively. To demonstrate analysis using travel-time costs, each tract in Figure
3.6 is evaluated for all neighboring tracts within a 30-minute travel time. Compar-
ing Figure 3.6 to Figure 3.4, we see definite similarities: job-rich clusters associ-
ated with the central study area and worker-rich clusters in the eastem counties.

Accessibility:
Very Poor for Warkers
:IItII Poar for Warkers
Effective
Paar for Employers
Very Poor far Emplayers ....:..

Figure 3.6. Greater Los Angeles, 1990. Accessibility scores based on travel-time costs.
Scale of analysis: 30 minutes

16 Median tract-to-tract travel times were extracted from the CTPP data set. Unfortunately,
these data are of poor quality. Not only did a large number of missing time costs need to
be estimated, but approximately 10 percent of the time values had to be discarded alto-
gether because they were clearly erroneous (indications that individuals driving alone in a
car could travel approximately 90 miles in 15 minutes, or required 99 minutes to travel
approximately 0.5 miles). Where necessary, travel time estimates were constructed from
similar, plausible commute times (similar distances and proximal origins and destina-
tions). The large number of estimates needed, however, limits the extent to which analy-
sis is possible. These estimates are sufficient, however, for demonstrating the potential,
given accurate data, to address a broad range ofurban research questions using the meth-
ods outlined in this chapter.
38 L.M. Scott

Transportation:
IIIlnhibits Accessibility
Has little Impact
~ Facilitates Accessibility

Figure 3.7. Greater Los Angeles, 1990. Transportation network impacts on accessibility.
Scale of analysis: 30 minutes.

Striking differences are found in the northern portion of the study area, where
accessibility based on distance indicates poor accessibility for workers, but based
on travel times indicates poor accessibility for employers. In this region, effective
transportation networks allow workers in the San Fernando Valley access to job-
rich tracts to the south. Figure 3.7, based on differences in accessibility scores
using both the 15-mile-distance radius and the 30-minute-time-cost isochrone,
indicates how the transportation network impacts intra-metropolitan accessibility
at this scale of analysis. Tracts with a block fill pattern indicate regions with con-
gestion or insufficient transport capacity, reducing accessibility potential. Tracts
with a striped fill pattern indicate regions where transportation infrastructure is
facilitating accessibility. The accessibility scores associated with tracts shown
using a smooth fill pattern did not change as a result of factoring in transportation
infrastructure infl uences.
Analyses using travel-time costs allow evaluation and isolation of the impacts
on intra-metropolitan accessibility imposed by transportation infrastructure, and
offer some very interesting possibilities for extended analysis. Figure 3.7 indicates
where insufficient infrastructure is limiting accessibility potential. An alternative
to using travel-time costs is using actual road networks and their associated capac-
ity constraints in constructing the spatial weights matrix. With this type of model,
it would be very interesting to test whether the congestion depicted in Figure 3.7
would be most effectively relieved by building more roads or, alternatively, by
 Intra-metropolitan Accessibility 39

encouraging flex-time employment opportunities 17 • In addition, incorporating ca-

pacity constraints into the structure of the spatial weights matrix adds a temporal
dimension to the Gi' analysis, offering potential for adynamie model of intra-
metropolitan accessibility.
Some may argue that in the information age, evaluation of transportation infra-
structure ought to include data reflecting communications infrastructure. For the
majority of individuals, however, telecommunications infrastructure is not the
limiting factor inhibiting access. More substantial limitations are associated with
lack of technical skills, poor access to appropriate equipment, or lack of opportu-
nity (telecommuting is not an option for some occupations, for example). These
limitations are addressed in the next seetion, focusing on functional components of
intra-metropolitan accessibility.

Functional Proximity

A final example of the Gi' analytical framework represents the relations between
origins and destinations as functional time costs. Functional time costs are one
instance of what Gatrell (1983) refers to as interaction proximities. The concept of
functional time costs or functional distances is based on the idea that two places
with high rates of spatial interaction are functionally 'closer' than two places with
very little interaction. Participation in place-based activities promotes familiarity,
which may be expressed through extended social networks, development of stra-
tegie contacts, and/or expanded knowledge about a place or region (see Hanson,
1998). In a recursive manner, participation in place-based activities promotes fa-
miliarity, while familiarity increases the likelihood of participation in place-based
activities. Using a similar logic, two places with very limited spatial interaction
may be represented as being functionally distant.
To operationalize the concept of functional travel times, I adapt a method devel-
oped by Tobler and Wineburg (1971) in an article titled A Cappadocian Specula-
tion. The adapted method involves inverting the doubly constrained gravity model
with known journey-to-work flows to solve for travel time. The doubly con-
strained gravity model may be written as:

and may be interpreted as folIows:

17 Flex-time refers to a relaxation of the 8-to-5 workday. Employers allow employees to

begin and end work over a broader time frame, as long as they fultill a required number
ofworking hours.
40 L.M. Seott

Fij = the number of joumey-to-work flows from site i to site j

Oi = the number ofworkers at site i (origins)
Dj = the number of jobs at site j (destinations)
tij = the travel time from site i to site j
b = an exponent reflecting the concept of a time decay
Ai =a vector of scaling factors to ensure Lj Fij =Oi, for every Oi
Bj = a vector of scaling factors to ensure Li Fij = Dj , for every Dj .

Inverting the model and using known values for Fij, we may solve for tij to obtain
functional time:

1fb

Functional Accessibility:
_ Dominated by Interaction
_ with Worker-Rich Tracts
Effective
~ Dominated by Interaction
~ with Job-Rich Tracts

Figure 3.8. Greater Los Angeles, 1990. Accessibility scores based on functional travel
times. Scale of analysis: 30 minutes.
 Intra-metropolitan Accessibility 41

Functional Travel Tirnes Are:

About the same
Shorter
. . Much Shorter

Figure 3.9. Greater Los Angeles, 1990. Comparison of actual travel times to functional
travel times.

Where actual spatial interaction rates are higher than predicted by the gravity
model, functional travel times will be shorter than actual travel times; where spa-
tial interaction rates are lower than predicted, functional times will be longer than
actual travel times. Figure 3.8 maps the Gi' accessibility scores calculated using a
spatial weights matrix based on a 30-minute functianal time-cost isochrone. This
map is quite different from the others. Notice that many of the tracts near Down-
town Los Angeles, while physically c10ser to job-rich (worker-poor) tracts, are
functionally c10ser to worker-rich tracts. Similarly, the job-poor tracts in south
Orange County are functionally c10ser to job-rich tracts to the north than to the
worker-rich tracts physically nearby. Workers in south Orange County are, there-
fore, exposed to a large number of jobs because of their commuting behavior. No-
tice, also, that Figure 3.8 is not a camplele reversal ofFigure 3.6. The worker-rich
tracts in the eastern-most portion of the study area, for example, continue to be
associated with worker-rich clusters. One interesting extension of this analysis
would be to actually map the stretching and pulling of space depicted by the func-
tional travel times used in the Figure 3.8 analysis. An alternative analysis is pre-
sented in Figure 3.9. Here the average functional travel times for all journey-to-
work flows are compared to the average actual travel times for these same flows.
Where functional travel-time averages are similar to actual travel-time averages,
we may conclude that accessibility is primarily determined by structural compo-
nents of accessibility: the spatial distribution of jobs in relation to resident work-
ers, and the impacts imposed by transportation infrastructure. However, tracts
associated with much shorter functional travel-time averages, indicate that non-
structural influences are impacting accessibility. These non-structural influences
might include higher incomes, effective access to private vehicles, association
42 L.M. Scott

with occupations allowing telecommuting, indifference to long-distance com-

mutes, along with a host of other possibilities.
While this aggregate-level analysis of functional travel times cannot explain the
behavior of any one individual, by applying this method to longitudinal data, we
may begin to address questions concerned with how broad spatial processes asso-
ciated with economic restructuring, suburbanization, and rapid developments in
transportation and telecommunications technologies, impact the urban landscape
from both a structural and non-structural perspective. This aggregate-level analy-
sis mayaiso provide aspringboard for more detailed disaggregate-level inquiries.
Regression analysis, for example, could be used to measure how weil variations in
income, race/ethnicity, gender, or occupational categories explain the functional
vs. actual travel-time differences depicted in Figure 3.9. The CTPP data set in-
cludes many ofthese variables both by place ofresidence and by place ofwork.
As a final look at accessibility in the Greater Los Angeles region, Figure 3.10
identifies tracts with consistent Gi" accessibility scores across all three of the
analyses presented: the spatial distribution of jobs and workers evaluated within
the context of a 15-mile distance radius, the distribution of jobs and workers in
relation to transportation infrastructure at a 30-minute scale of analysis, and the
functional relationships between jobs and workers based on actual travel flows
and a 30-minute-functional-time isochrone. Tracts consistently associated with
worker-rich (job-poor) local interactions represent a high priority for implementa-
tion of urban planning strategies promoting job development. Tracts consistently
associated with job-rich (worker-poor) local interactions represent priority areas
for urban planning promoting housing development. Finally, careful study of the
tracts consistently associated with effective accessibility may provide guidelines
for promoting more efficient, equitable, and sustainable communities.

Accessibility:
. . Poor for Workers
Effective
Poor for Employers
Inconsistent

Figure 3.10. Greater Los Angeles, 1990. Accessibility score stability. Based on: 15-mile
distance, 3D-minute travel time, and 3D-minute functional time analysis.
 Intra-metropolitan Accessibility 43

3.5 Conclusions

This chapter has reviewed some of the definitional and operational challenges that
must be met if we are to effectively examine impacts on intra-metropolitan acces-
sibility associated with the broad spatial processes of economic restructuring, sub-
urbanization, and rapid developments in transportation and telecommunications
technologies. It has outlined an analytical framework structured around a level-of-
service definition of accessibility, the Couclelis proximal space construct, and the
Getis/Ord Gi" statistic. Future research will consider use of actual road networks,
incorporation of highway capacity constraints to develop a dynamic accessibility
model, exploration of the efficacy of defining the relations between origins and
destinations using other attribute and interaction proximities, and consideration of
other methods for deriving functional travel times. Taking analysis of intra-
metropolitan accessibility in the Greater Los Angeles region to the next level, will
require accurate data over aseries oftime periods. While the challenges are daunt-
ing, understanding how broad spatial processes in the information age shape urban
spatial structure represents one of the most interesting and exciting tasks facing
urban geographers at this time.

References
Arentze, T.A., Borgers, A.WJ., and Timmermans, HJ.P. 1994. Multistop-based measure-
ments of accessibility in a GIS environment. International Journal of Geographical In-
formation Systems 8:343-56.
Breheny, MJ. 1978. The measurement of spatial opportunity in strategie planning. Re-
gional Studies 12:463-79.
Bums, L.D. 1979. Transportation, temporal, and spatial components of accessibility. Lex-
ington: Lexington Books.
Chinitz, B. 1991. A framework for speculating about future urban growth patterns in the
USo Urban Studies 28:939-59.
Couclelis, H. 1991. Requirements for planning-relevant GIS: a spatial perspective. Papers
in Regional Science 70:9-19.
Couclelis, H. 1992. Location, Place, Region, and Space. In Abler, R.F., Marcus, M.G., and
Olson, J.M. (eds.) Geography's Inner Worlds: Pervasive Themes in Contemporary
American Geography. New Brunswick, NI: Rutgers University Press, 215-33.
Couclelis, H. 1994. Editorial: Spatial Technologies. Environment and Planning B: Plan-
ning and Design 21: 142-43.
Couclelis, H. 1997. From cellular automata to urban models: new principles for model de-
velopment and implementation. Environment and Planning B: Planning and Design
24:165-74.
Gatrell, A.C. 1983. Distance and Space: a Geographical Perspective. Oxford: Clarendon
Press.
Geertman, S.C.M. and Ritsema Van Eck, lR. 1995. GIS and models ofaccessibility poten-
tial: an application in planning. International Journal of Geographical Information Sys-
tems 9:67-80.
44 L.M. Seott

Getis, A. 1994. Spatial Dependence and Heterogeneity and Proximal Databases. In Fother-
ingharn, S. and Rogerson, R. (eds.) Spatial Analysis and GIS. London: Taylor & Francis,
213-29.
Getis, A. and Ord, J.K. 1992. The analysis of spatial assoeiation by use of distanee statis-
ties. Geographical Analysis 24: 189-206.
Giuliano, G. 1995. The weakening transportation-Iand use eonneetion. Access, 6:3-11.
Giuliano, G. and SmalI, K.A 1991. Subcenters in the Los Angeles Region. Regional Sci-
ence and Urban Economics 21: 163-82.
Gould, P. 1969. Spatial Diffusion: Commission on College Geography. Washington DC:
Association of Ameriean Geographers.
Graham, S. and Marvin, S. 1996. Telecommunications and the City: Electronic Spaces,
Urban Places. London: Routledge.
Handy, S.L. 1994. Highway blues: nothing a little aecessibility cantt eure. Access 5:3-7.
Hanson, S. 1998. Off the road? Refleetions on transportation geography in the information
age. Journal ofTransport Geography 6:241-49.
Hanson, S. and Schwab, M. 1987. Accessibility and intraurban trave\. Environment and
Planning A 19: 735-48.
Harvey, D. 1973. Social Justice and the City. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University
Press.
Haynes, K.E. and Fotheringharn, AS. 1984. Gravity and Spatial Interaction Models. Bev-
erly HiIIs: Sage Publications.
Helling, A. 1996. Why We Should Care About Intra-Metropolitan Accessibility and How
We Measure It. In Couclelis, H. (ed.) Spatial Technologies, Geographie Information, and
the City Proceedings (Baltimore, Maryland, Sep 9-11). Santa Barbara CA: National Cen-
ter for Geographie Information and Analysis.
Helling, A. 1998. Changing intra-metropolitan aeeessibility in the U.S.: evidence from
Atlanta. Progress in Planning 49:55-107.
Ingram, D.R. 1971. The eoneept of aeeessibility: a seareh for an operational form. Regional
Studies 5:101-7.
Jones, S.R. 1981. Accessibility Measures: a Literature Review. Transport and Road Re-
search Laboratory Report 967. Crowthome, Berkshire: TRRL.
Knox, P.L. 1980. Measures of aecessibility as social indieators: a note. SocialIndicators
Research 7:367-77.
Koenig, J.G. 1980. Indicators ofurban aecessibility: theory and application. Transportation
9: 145-72.
Kwan, M. 1998. Spaee-Time and integral measures of individual aceessibility: a compara-
tive analysis using a point-based framework. Geographical Analysis 30: 191-216.
Lawton, R. 1983. Spaee, place and time. Geography 68:193-207.
MiIler, HJ. 1991. Modelling aeeessibility using spaee-time prism eoneepts within geo-
graphieal information systems. International Journal of Geographical Information Sys-
tems 5: 287-301.
Morris, J.M., Dumble, P.L., and Wigan, M.R. 1979. Aeeessibility indieators for transport
planning. Transportation Research A BA: 91-109.
Ord, J.K. and Getis, A 1995. Local spatial autoeorrelation statisties: distributional issues
and an applieation. Geographical Analysis 27: 287-306.
Pirie, G.H. 1979. Measuring aeeessibility: a review and proposa\. Environment and Plan-
ning A 11 :299-312.
Pred, A. 1977. City-Systems in Advanced Economies. London: Hutehinson.
 Intra-metropolitan Accessibility 45

Sheppard, E. 1996. Commentary: Site, situation, and social theory. Environment and Plan-
ning A 28: 1339-44.
Simpson, W. 1987. Workplace location, residential location, and urban commuting. Urban
Studies 24: 119-28.
Smith, N. 1984. Uneven Development: Nature, Capital, and the Production ojSpace. Ox-
ford: Basil Blackwell.
Soja, E., Morales, R., and Wolff, G. 1983. Urban restructuring: an analysis of social and
spatial change in Los Angeles. Economic Geography 59:195-230.
Tobler, W.R. and Wineburg, S. 1971. A Cappadocian speculation. Nature 231 :39-41.
Wachs, M. and Kumagai, T.G. 1973. Physical accessibility as a social indicator. Socio-
Economic Planning Sciences 7:437-56
4 Transportation, Telecommunications, and
the Changing Geography of Opportunityl

Qing Shen

Department ofUrban Studies and Planning, Massaehusetts Institute ofTeehnology,

Cambridge MA 02139, USA. Email: qshen@mit.edu

4.1 Introduction

New telecommunications ~ digital information and communication technologies

that support interaction and transaction over long distances ~ are emerging as a
primary force in shaping cities. And more fundamentaIly, they are becoming one
of the most important variables in defining spatial relationships among people and
organizations located in metropolitan areas. Manifested by the rapid growth of the
Internet, ATMs, and mobile phones, telecommunications are permeating the
physical structure, the economic production, and the social life of cities. Visibly
and invisibly, these technologies are creating new spatial paths and baITiers that
will profoundly affect people's access to economic opportunities and social ser-
vices. Therefore, one of the most important tasks for urban researchers in the in-
formation age is to help policy makers and the general public to understand,
monitor, predict, and respond to spatial consequences resulting from a massive-
scale deployment of new telecommunications.
Despite their pervasiveness, spatial effects of telecommunications are largely
uncharted (Atkinson 1998, Batty 1996). Part of the explanation for this can be
found in the dynamic nature of these new technologies. Because the synthesis of
digital information and communication systems is still at an early stage, the tech-
nologies as weIl as the effects they generate are changing rapidly. Under these
circumstances, empirical data often become obsolete quickly, and forecasts of
future outcomes tend to be speculative. However, perhaps the more important rea-
son is found in the limitation of existing analytical approaches. SpecificaIly, few
studies attempt to incorporate relationships between transportation and telecom-
munications, or more generally relationships between the physical space and the
virtual space, explicitly into the analytical framework. Therefore, analyses of spa-
tial consequences of the new technologies are often incomplete and potentially
biased. Also, they often fail to address systematically and rigorously important
issues of social equity related to the spatial consequences. Undoubtedly, there is

I Reprinted with permission from Urban Geography, Vol. 20, No. 4, pp. 334-355. ©V.H.
Winston & Son, Ine., South Oeean Boulevard, Palm Beaeh, FL 33480. All rights reserved.
48 Q. Shen

an urgent need for new concepts and methods that will allow urban researchers to
examine the new geography as an interdependent whole (Couc1elis 1996).
This chapter aims to achieve two objectives. The first is to develop an analytical
framework that integrates location, transportation, and telecommunication vari-
ables into a unified representation of spatial relationships. The second objective is
to use the new analytical framework as a tool to undertake structured explorations
of spatial and social implications oftelecommunications. The focus ofthis study is
on the changing geography of opportunity in American metropolitan areas.
The next section presents the new analytical framework, which is developed
based on literature in three areas of urban research. The first is spatial representa-
tion using accessibility measures (Morris, Dumble, and Wigan 1979, Shen 1998a;
Weibull 1976), the second is urban industrial restructuring (Kasarda 1995, Office
of Technology Assessment, U.S. Congress 1995), and the third is telecommuting
(Mokhtarian 1990, Salomon and Mokhtarian 1997). The third section will apply
the new analytical framework to an analysis of the changing geography of oppor-
tunity. The discussion starts with observations of spatial reconfigurations that have
taken place in metropolitan areas that have been shaped by the automobile. It is
then expanded by taking into consideration new options of access, new composi-
tions of economic opportunities, and new spatial patterns of metropolitan growth
that are emerging in the information age. The fourth section will discuss some
findings of a case study of employment accessibility in the Boston Metropolitan
Area. The analysis of existing patterns and the simulation of future change both
shed light on the understanding of the spatial and social effects of new telecom-
munications. In the conciuding section, some policy implications will be drawn
and directions for future research will be identified.

4.2 Spatial Technologies, Accessibility, and Geography of

Opportunity

Basic Concepts

The discussion in this chapter involves several important concepts. One such con-
cept is spatial technologies, which is defined by Coucielis (1996) as the complex
of transportation, communication, and information technologies that together
modifY spatial relations. Another concept is accessibility, which is a measure of
the strength and extensiveness of spatial relationships between opportunity seekers
and relevant opportunities. Accessibility is a basic concept in geography, because
it indicates the potential for spatial interaction. A third concept is geography 01
opportunity, which can be defined as a collection of people, economic opportuni-
ties, and the spatial relationships between them. In many studies, inciuding this
one, the metropolitan area is considered as the territorial extent of the geography
of opportunity.
 The Changing Geography of Opportunity 49

The general relationships among these three concepts are clear. Spatial tech-
nologies modifY spatial relations, and the effects can be measured concretely by
examining changes in accessibility. Changes in accessibility, in turn, imply possi-
ble reconfigurations of the geography of opportunity. These relationships become
specific and meaningful when examined in some real context, such as a metropoli-
tan area. They become much more complex once the social dimension is added to
the analysis.

Transportation and Accessibility

Over the decades, urban researchers have developed accessibility measures to help
und erstand the complex relationship between transportation technologies and the
changing geography of opportunity. Their efforts have resulted in a large volume
of literature. Most researchers agree that the level of accessibility for an opportu-
nity seeker is a function of (4.1) the total number of relevant opportunities, (4.2)
the spatial distribution of these opportunities, (4.3) the spatiallocation of the indi-
vidual, and (4.4) the individual's ability to overcome spatial separation. When
opportunities are relatively scarce, the competition with other opportunity seekers
must also be taken into account. Many mathematical formulations have been pro-
posed for the measurement of accessibility (Morris, Dumble, and Wigan 1979). In
the following formulation, first suggested by Weibull (1976) and recently general-
ized by Shen (l998a), each available opportunity is weighted by a demand factor,
expressed as the denominator, which represents the competing demand generated
by other opportunity seekers:

A; = ~ - - - - - - - (4.1 )

where:
A; is the accessibility for opportunity seekers who live in zone i and
travel by mode v
Oj is the number of relevant opportunities in zone j
f(tgV) is the impedance for travel from i to j by mode v
f(tkjm) is the impedance for travel from k to j by mode m
p km is the number of opportunity seekers who live in zone k and travel by
modem
For a metropolitan area with N zones, i, j, k = 1, 2, ... , N
For a metropolitan area with M modes, v, m = 1, 2, ... , M
50 Q. Shen

As an aeeessibility measure, equation 4.1 has several desirable properties. One

important property is that it provides a eonsistent ftamework for ineorporating
geographie loeations and transportation modes into the measurement, and there-
fore allows direet eomparison of aeeessibility aeross modes as weil as aeross loea-
tions. Beeause modal ehoiees are related to individuals' socioeeonomie eonditions
- for example, low-ineome people are mueh more likely to travel by publie trans-
portation, this measure ean reveal aeeessibility differentials among social groups.
It ean help understand how geographie loeations and transportation teehnologies,
whieh are highly eorrelated with socioeeonomie variables, jointiy determine indi-
viduals' relative positions in the geography of opportunity. Another important
property, mathematieally proved by Shen (1998a), is that its expeeted value al-
ways equals the ratio of the total number of opportunities to the total number of
opportunity seekers, and henee is predetermined. Therefore, for eaeh mode of
transportation, accessibility-poor zones ean be distinguished easily from 'aeeessi-
bility-rieh' zones.
Für a eommunity, represented by a geographie zone, the overall position in the
geography of opportunity is determined by the levels of aeeessibility for its resi-
dents. Shen (1998a) proposes the following general aeeessibility measure to spee-
ity this relationship:

(4.2)

where:
A~ is the general aeeessibility for all opportunity seekers who live in
zone i
P; is the number of opportunity seekers who live in zone i and travel by
mode v
Pi is the total number of opportunity seekers in zone i

Equation 4.2 essentially ealculates a weighted seore of aeeessibility for eaeh

zone. The numbers of people traveling by the different modes are used as the
weights. The higher the pereentage of a zone's residents that use advaneed trans-
portation, the higher a zone's general aeeessibility will be. The expeeted value of
general aeeessibility also equals the ratio of the total number of opportunities to
the total number of opportunity seekers (Shen 1998a). Henee zones in whieh the
residents are on average accessibility-poor ean be distinguished easily ftom zones
in whieh the residents are on average accessibility-rich. Therefore, this measure
depiets an overall pieture of the geography of opportunity of a metropolitan area
by defining the relative position of eaeh zone in terms of aeeessibility.
 The Changing Geography of Opportunity 51

Telecommunications and Accessibility

Telecommunications are a type of spatial technology that has some distinctive

characteristics. These characteristics fundamentally determine how telecommuni-
cations modify spatial relationships and reconfigure the geography of opportunity.
First of all, they are a means of access that is of a very high speed. In fact, when
human interaction takes place over telecommunication networks, the time cost is
so small that it is practically invariant with physical distance. Therefore, access in
the virtual space follows logical links rather than physical paths, resulting in de-
spatialization 0/ interaction (Mitchell 1995). For opportunities that belong exclu-
sively to the virtual space, measurement of accessibility through the specification
of some time or distance impedance function is neither practical nor meaningful.
Secondly, telecommunications are useful for accessing only certain kinds of op-
portunities - or more precisely, certain elements of certain kinds of opportunities -
which do not require the physical presence of the opportunity seekers. The devel-
opment and deployment of digital information and communication technologies is
associated with a fundamental restructuring of the economy, which is character-
ized by a rapid increase of opportunity elements that are accessible through tele-
communications. An important indication is that information workers, whose
primary economic activity involves the creation, processing, or distribution of
information, now constitute about 50 percent of the labor force of the United
States (U.S. nOT 1993). Therefore, any representation ofthe geography of oppor-
tunity will be incomplete if telecommunications are excluded. On the other hand,
relatively few opportunities can be accessed fully through electronic means.
Transportation and face-to-face interaction are still important, although the fre-
quency of certain types oftravel is reduced.
Some of the more thorough studies of the relationship between physical and
electronic means of spatial interaction are those by researchers in the area of tele-
commuting (Mokhtarian 1990, Salomon 1986, Salomon and Mokhtarian 1997,
U.S. nOT 1993). They found that telecommuters generally reduce, rather than
eliminate, commuting trips. Most telecommuters still make several work-related
trips every week for the purpose ofmaintaining a certain frequency offace-to-face
interactions with co-workers and elients. This is essential for establishing and sus-
taining good working relationships with them, which enables telecommuters to
function effectively while working at horne. Furthermore, many telecommuters
must travel to workplace from time to time because some of their tasks require
special facilities or elose interactions with co-workers, and therefore cannot be
done remotely. The relationship between commuting and telecommuting is partly
substituting and partly complementary.
Thirdly, telecommunications not only provide an important means of accessing
opportunities, but also are themselves an indispensable component of an increas-
ing number of opportunities. Wehave seen parallel situations for transportation;
for example, operating motor vehieles is an essential part of the jobs of police of-
ficers and bus drivers. But such a dual function is much more common for tele-
communications. To understand how this will potentially affect accessibility and
the geography of opportunity, it is useful to adopt the concept of skill mismatch,
52 Q. Shen

which appears frequently in the literature on industrial restructuring (Kasarda

1995, Office ofTechnology Assessment, U.S. Congress 1995). The ability to work
with colleagues and clients remotely through information and communication sys-
tems will be required as a basic skill for a higher and higher percentage of jobs in
the information age. People who do not have such a skill will be excluded from
these economic opportunities.
Taken together, these characteristics suggest that it is both possible and neces-
sary to develop a unified framework - which incorporates both transportation and
telecommunications - for the measurement of accessibility. A starting point for
developing such an operational measure is to redefine the components: opportuni-
ties, opportunity seekers, and impedance functions.
It is a reasonable simplification to define three categories of opportunities: 2

• One category consists of opportunities that are accessed through telecommu-

nications, at least in part. Telecommunications are an indispensable compo-
nent of these opportunities. This category will be denoted as C in
mathematical expressions. Assuming that it constitutes fjJ proportion of the to-
tal opportunities 0, there will be fjJO opportunities in this category. They are
accessible only to people with telecommunications capabilities.
• A second category consists of opportunities that can be accessed through
either transportation or telecommunications. Telecommunications are the
preferable means of accessing these opportunities, but are not an indispensa-
ble component of these opportunities. Assuming that this category constitutes
A proportion of the total, there will be AO opportunities in it. They are acces-
sible to everyone, through transportation or telecommunications.
• A third category consists of traditional types of opportunities that belong ex-
clusively to the physical space, and therefore are accessed through transporta-
tion only. Obviously, there will be (1-fjJ-A)0 opportunities in this category.
They are also accessible to everyone, because everyone has certain transpor-
tation capabilities.

Opportunity seekers can be divided into two broad categories based on whether
or not they have telecommunications capabilities:

2 It is important to note that the classification presented here is different from what was
described in an earlier paper by this author (Shen 1998b). The old classification included
only two categories of opportunities - opportunities that can only be accessed through
telecommunications and opportunities that can only be accessed through transportation.
The new classification has an additional category, which consists of opportunities that can
be accessed through either transportation or telecommunication. The new scheme is more
sophisticated and realistic. Because of the difference in classification, the resulting
formulations and measurements of accessibility are also different in some ways.
 The Changing Geography ofOpportunity 53

• One category is comprised of opportunity seekers who have telecommunica-

tions capabilities. Assuming it constitutes 8 proportion of the total opportu-
nity seekers P, there will be 8P people in this category. These people can
access all three categories of opportunities.
• The other category is comprised of opportunity seekers who do not have tele-
communications capabilities. Obviously, there will be (1-8) P people in this
category. These people cannot access the first category of opportunities, but
they can access the other two.

If there are M transportation modes, there will actually be 2M groups of oppor-

tunity seekers, which is the total number of possible combinations of telecommu-
nications status and transportation modes. The term telecommunications
capabilities is purposefully left unspecified here. It is intended to be a broad con-
cept that can accommodate a wide range of combinations of technologies and
skills for using the technologies. In some contexts, it may simply indicate the ca-
pability to use the telephone for telemarketing; in other contexts, it may describe
the capability to use sophisticated digital information and communication systems
for Internet commerce and service. This concept carries more specific meanings
once the problem to be studied is decided. In this research, telecommunications
capabilities mean some combination of available equipment and skills that enables
a worker to access and distribute information remotely using digital information
systems and communication networks.
The reconceptualized accessibility measures can be generally expressed by the
following two equations:
• Accessibility for seekers who do not have telecommunications capabilities

(4.3)

• Accessibility for seekers who have telecommunications capabilities

(4.4)

where:
At(1) is accessibility to opportunities that are accessed through transporta-
tion only;
A;V(2) is accessibility to opportunities that can be accessed through either
transportation or telecommunications, as measured for people who
can use transportation only;
Aj cv(2) is accessibility to opportunities that can be accessed through either
transportation or telecommunications, as measured for people who
can use telecommunications;
54 Q. Shen

At(3) is accessibility to opportunities that are accessed through telecom-

munications.

To make these general formulas specific and operational, impedance functions

must be defined. The usual approach is to determine the zone-to-zone travel times
(or travel distances) for each means of access. For the transportation component,
travel time by mode is used straightforwardly. For the telecommunications com-
ponent, however, travel time can be defined only if people who use telecommuni-
cations to access opportunities still make at least some complementary trips. The
literature on telecommuting suggests that this is indeed the case. Assuming that
these people typically travel to a certain type of opportunities once every r days,
instead of everyday, we can calculate a perceived average daily travel time for
them:

(4.5)

In other words, there are two variables that determine the impedance for an op-
portunity seeker who has telecommunications capabilities. One is the frequency of
using transportation for opportunity-seeking trips, and the other is the zone-to-
zone travel times for the transportation mode used. Note that (]' is a parameter that
converts an actual average daily travel time into a perceived average daily travel
time. 3 There are M different specifications of impedance for people who have tele-
communications capabilities, each corresponding to a transportation mode. To
keep the discussion simple, it is assumed that the travel frequency for people who
use telecommunications to aeeess opportunity does not vary aeross geographie
loeations or types of opportunities.
There are many possible mathematical formulations for specifying equations 4.3
and 4.4. Here the discussion is based on the assumption that equation 4.1, de-
scribed previously, is a proper representation of accessibility in the physical space,
and can be extended to represent more eompletely accessibility in the emerging
geography ofthe information age.
Accessibility for different groups of opportunity seekers can be measured using
the following equations, which are the extended versions of equation 4.1:

3 The value of (J" should normally be determined through calibration. But because the em-
pirical data required for calibration are not currently available, (J" is given the value of 1
by assuming that the perceived average daily travel time equals the actual average daily
travel time.
 The Changing Geography ofOpportunity 55

• For opportunity seekers who do not have telecommunications capabilities

A; = ~ - - - - - - - + ~ - - - - - - - - - - - - - - (4.6)
ImIk p km f(t/<jm) ImIk [(1-t5JPkm f(t/<jm) + t5?t f(t/<jctn)]

• For opportunity seekers who have telecommunications capabilities

A;-' = ~ - - - - - - - + ~ - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
ImIk p km f(t/<jm) ImIk [(1-t5JPkm f(t/<jm) + t5?t f(t/<jctn)]

+~------- (4.7)

Although these two equations appear quite complicated, they are in fact rather
straightforward to understand. The accessibility for opportunity seekers who do
not have telecommunications capabilities, which is represented by equation 4.6,
has two components. The first component is essentially the same as the right side
of equation 4.1, except that only (1-~-)")Oj opportunities in each zone are now
accessed exc1usively through transportation. These opportunities are accessible to
all opportunity seekers (ImIkPkm). Hence the denominator, which represents the
demand factor, includes competing demands generated by all of them. The second
component calculates accessibility attributed to ).,/0opportunities in each zone that
are accessible both to people with telecommunications capabilities (ImI kt5?km)
and people with only transportation (ImIJ1-t5JP km). The demand factor of this
component, which is the denominator, consists of competing demands generated
by these two broad categories of opportunity seekers. It is important to note that
the two impedance functions contain different travel times: travel time is t/<jctn is for
people with telecommunications; it is t/<jm is for people with only transportation.
The accessibility for opportunity seekers who have telecommunications capa-
bilities, which is represented by equation 4.7, has three components. The first
component is identical to the first component in equation (4.6), because they can
also use transportation to access the (1-~-)") Oj opportunities in each zone. The
second component is also essentially the same as the second component in equa-
tion 4.6, except that tr t/
instead of is used to specif)r the impedance function in
the numerator. The third component calculates accessibility attributed to the rjJ.o.
} }
56 Q. Shen

opportunities in each zone that require telecommunications capabilities, and there-

fore are accessible only to the LmLk0,fkm opportunity seekers who have such ca-
pabilities. The denominator, which represents the demand factor, includes only
competing demands generated by these people.
This extended accessibility measure - the combination of equations 4.6 and 4.7
- has properties similar to the simpler measure expressed by equation 4.1. It is a
unified framework that allows for meaningful comparison across transportation
modes, telecommunications capabilities, and geographie locations. Because tele-
communications capabilities, like modal choices, are related to individuals' socio-
economic conditions, this measure can indicate accessibility differentials among
social groups in the information age. It can help understand how telecommunica-
tions, together with transportation technologies and geographie locations, deter-
mines individuals' relative positions in the new geography of opportunity. The
other important property - that its expected value equals the ratio of the total
number of opportunities to the total number of opportunity seekers - can also be
proved. The mathematical procedure is tedious, and is omitted here. Because of
this property, accessibility-paar zones can be distinguished easily from accessibil-
ity-rich zones for each group of opportunity seekers, which is defined by a combi-
nation of the transportation mode and the telecommunications status.
Notice that when ~ and AI the proportions of opportunities that are accessed
exclusively and partly through telecommunications, are both equal to zero, equa-
tions 4.6 and 4.7 become one single equation identical to equation 4.1.
For a community, the varying levels of accessibility for its residents determine
the community's overall position in the geography of opportunity. This relation-
ship can also be described by a composite measure of general accessibility:

(4.8)

Notice that although all opportunity seekers in zone i can use transportation as
the only means of access, only LiP;-Pr;'J of them actually have to do so. This
weighted measure, similar to equation (4.2), shows that the higher the percentage
of a zone's residents that use advanced spatial technologies, the higher the zone's
general accessibility will be. In addition, as in equation 4.2, its expected value
equals the ratio of the total number of opportunities to the total number of oppor-
tunity seekers. Hence, zones in which the residents are on average accessibility-
paar are easily distinguished from zones in which the residents are on average
accessibility-rich. This general accessibility measure depicts an overall picture of
the emerging geography of opportunity, by defining the relative position of each
zone.
 The Changing Geography of Opportunity 57

4.3 New Technologies and the Changing Geography of

Opportunity

With properly constructed accessibility measures, one can think through more
clearly how spatial technologies - transportation and telecommunications - may
separately and jointly reconfigure spatial relationships in a metropolitan area. One
can effectively explore future changes in the geography of opportunity and ad-
dress some 'what-if' questions systematically and rigorously.

Spatial and Social Effects of the Automobile

The automobile has been the most important technological force in shaping
American metropolitan areas in the twentieth century. It has fundamentally
changed the geography of opportunity. Using equation 4.1 described in the previ-
ous section, spatial and social effects of the automobile can be characterized in
terms of increases and decreases in accessibility. The spatial effects of the auto-
mobile are largely attributed to four basic changes brought directly or indirectly by
this great invention: speed of access, spatial distribution of jobs and services, spa-
tial distribution of people, and industrial restructuring.

Speed of Access. The automobile has provided the great majority of households
with a fast and flexible means of transportation for daily activities. This great
benefit, however, does not go to the relatively small percentage ofhouseholds that
cannot travel by car due to financial, physical, or other constraints. These people
are still dependent on public transportation. Unfortunately, increased usage of per-
sonal motor vehicles has often been associated with decreased quality of service of
public transportation. Therefore, the automobile has caused a widening gap among
people's ability to overcome spatial separation. It has reduced drivers' zone-to-
zone travel times, but has often increased transit passengers' zone-to-zone travel
times. Everything else being equal, the accessibility for the former would increase,
whereas the accessibility for the latter would decrease.

Spatial Distribution of Jobs and Services. The automobile has enabled urban
employment to decentralize, and has therefore facilitated a spatially dispersed pat-
tern of metropolitan growth. Consequently, a high percentage of private enter-
prises and govemmental agencies are now located in suburban areas not served by
public transit. In the accessibility measure, this change is depicted by reduced op-
portunities in zones located within or near the central city. In the meantime, zones
that are difficult to access by public transit, and therefore have long transit travel
times from other zones, gain a large share of the redistributed opportunities. As-
suming all other factors were constant, accessibility would overall decrease in the
center but increase at the periphery. The greatest decrease in accessibility would
occur for transit-dependent groups living in the central city.
58 Q. Shen

Spatial Distribution of People. The automobile has also effected the decentrali-
zation of urban population. In particular, people who own a private automobile
have gained more freedom in choosing horne and work locations, as weIl as the
freedom to trade accessibility for better housing. The transit-dependent population
groups, however, are confined to residential and employment locations connected
to the public transportation network. For low-income minorities subject to dis-
crimination in the housing and labor markets, location choices are even more lim-
ited. These changes can be properly described in terms of accessibility only if
measurement is made separately for the privileged and the disadvantaged. For the
former, population decentralization has partly offset employment decentralization,
and therefore has reduced the magnitude of accessibility loss in the center and
accessibility gain at the periphery. For the disadvantaged groups, such offsetting
effect is more limited.

Industrial Restructuring. Decentralization has been especially prevailing for

industries - such as manufacturing and wholesale - that require more land per unit
of output but less face-to-face interaction with customers. Thus, an increasingly
large share of business establishments located in the central city are information-
processing industries. Employment decentralization has changed occupational
compositions both in the central city and in the suburbs. These changes can also
be properly described in terms of accessibility if measurement is made separately
for different occupation groups. For those workers whose primary economic activ-
ity involves collection and processing of information, industrial restructuring has
partly offset the effects of employment decentralization. For the rest, industrial
restructuring has reinforced the effects of employment decentralization.
Overall, transit-dependent groups located in the central city have been worse off
in terms of accessibility. They have been worse off not only relatively in compari-
son with the great majority of the population who can drive their own car, but also
in absolute terms. The absolute decline in accessibility is due to the fact that while
their travel speed has not increased, job opportunities and social services have
become more dispersed. On the other hand, the overall level of accessibility for
the auto-driving population located in the suburbs has increased both relatively
and absolutely. This group has a fast means of access and is located in areas with
increasing opportunities brought by employment decentralization. Because low-
income and minority groups constitute disproportionately high percentages of the
transit-dependent population in the central city but low percentages of the auto-
driving population in the suburbs, the spatial consequences imply increased gaps
between the privileged and the disadvantaged. Furthermore, because transit-
dependent people constitute a large proportion of the central-city population, from
equation 4.2 one can see that the central city's position in the geography of oppor-
tunity has declined.
This general discussion is useful for outlining some major changes in urban spa-
tial structure during the age of the automobile. However, there are many questions
that cannot be answered in abstract and general terms. They require empirical
analysis of specific cases. For example, has the location advantage of the central
city totally disappeared as far as low-skilled workers' residential choice is con-
 The Changing Geography of Opportunity 59

cerned? Is good residential location still an effective substitution for automobile

ownership? Some of these questions will be addressed later with findings of a case
study of employment accessibility in the Boston Metropolitan Area.

Spatial and Social Effects of Telecommunications

Telecommunications, especially the new digital information and communication

technologies, can generate spatial effects that are even more revolutionary than
those generated by the automobile. The effects can also be characterized in terms
of increase and decrease in accessibility, measured using equations 4.6 and 4.7
described in the previous section. The analysis can, once again, proceed by exam-
ining four basic changes - speed of access, spatial distribution of jobs and ser-
vices, spatial distribution of people, and industrial restructuring - which have, in
this case, been brought direct1y or indirect1y by telecommunications.

Speed of Access. For people who use these new technologies to access opportuni-
ties, the saving in time spent on travel can be enormous. For example, if workers
telecommute two days every week, they will reduce their average daily commut-
ing time by forty percent. Since there are still many households in the United
States who do not have a telephone, it is most likely that a considerable percentage
of the population will not have adequate telecommunications capabilities in the
near future. Therefore, there will be further widening in the gap among people in
terms of ability to overcome spatial separation. Travel time differentials across
population groups will increase. Everything else being equal, the level of accessi-
bility for people who have telecommunications capabilities will increase, whereas
the level of accessibility for the others will decrease relatively.

Spatial Distribution of Jobs and Services. New telecommunications are likely to

cause further decentralization of employment. Over the past three decades, many
urban researchers have attempted to address the question of how telecommunica-
tions will affect the spatial distribution of urban activities and, ultimately, the fu-
ture of the city (Berry 1973, Castells 1996, Gottmann 1983, Hall 1996, Meier
1962, Mitchell 1995, Webber 1964; 1996). Despite many differences among these
researchers' approaches and views, they generally agree that information and
communication technologies create a possibility for certain types of economic
activities to become footloose. In all likelihood, new telecommunications will re-
inforce the existing trend of employment decentralization. Their spatial effects
will have a similar pattern: accessibility will overall decrease in the center but
increase at the periphery; the greatest decline in accessibility will occur for those
people who live in the central city and do not have access to telecommunications.
However, the magnitude ofthe impacts is likely to be greater.

Spatial Distribution of People. There will likely be a parallel decentralization of

population. Leading the future wave of decentralization will be telecommuters
60 Q. Shen

who are equipped with both automobiles and telecommunications. However, this
group will be relatively small compared to the auto-driving population. Some re-
searchers reported recently that only about a third of employees in the United
States are potential telecommuters (Salomon and Mokhtarian 1997). But overall,
the existing pattern of population decentralization will be reinforced. Therefore,
the offsetting effect, which applies mainly to the economically and socially privi-
leged group, will also occur: population decentralization will reduce the magni-
tude of loss of accessibility in the center and gain of accessibility at the periphery.

Industrial Restructuring. This process now consists of three elements. First of

all, occupational compositions in the central city and in the suburbs will both con-
tinue to change. In particular, the percentage of employment in traditional indus-
tries that always require the physical presence of the workers will decrease.
Secondly, a large and increasing percentage of job opportunities and social ser-
vices will be accessible through telecommunications as weil as transportation.
And finally, a considerable percentage of job opportunities and social services will
require telecommunications capabilities for access. The emerging Internet com-
merce and tele-medicine are examples. These three elements are, respectively,
represented in the three components of equation 4.7 described earlier. It is easy to
see that everything else being equal, the level of accessibility for people who have
telecommunications capabilities will increase, whereas the level of accessibility
for the others will decrease.
In general, central-city residents who do not have telecommunications capabili-
ties will be worse off in terms of accessibility. They will be worse off relatively in
comparison with the people who can access opportunities through telecommunica-
tions. They will most likely be worse off in absolute terms, because an increase in
opportunities that require telecommunications for access, and hence not accessible
to them, will almost certain be accompanied by a corresponding decrease in op-
portunities that can be accessed fully through transportation. On the other hand,
suburb an residents who have telecommunications capabilities will have an overall
higher level of accessibility than before, measured in absolute terms.
Many scholars suggest that new classes of privileged and disadvantaged may
emerge in the information age. However, research findings indicate that the 'new
classes' are in many ways reassembling the old classes (Hoffman and Novak
1998). Therefore, the spatial reconfigurations caused by telecommunications can
also be translated into social effects. Undoubtedly, low-income and minority
groups will constitute disproportionately high percentages of those central-city
residents who do not have telecommunications capabilities but low percentages of
those suburban residents who have such capabilities. Without strong policy inter-
vention, a new form of marginalization will be in place. Furthermore, from equa-
tion 4.8 one can see that the central city's overall position in the geography of
opportunity may continue to decline in the future, since a high percentage of its
residents will be unlikely to have telecommunications capabilities.
Because of the increased complexity of spatial configurations in the information
age, there are more issues that cannot be addressed without examining empirical
data for specific contexts. In particular, it is not easy to see clearly the relative
 The Changing Geography of Opportunity 61

eontributions of geographie loeations, transportation modes, and teleeommuniea-

tions eapabilities in determining the aeeessibility differentials among individuals
and eommunities. The ease study of employment aeeessibility in the Boston Met-
ropolitan Area, reported in the next seetion, will help obtain additional insights
into such eomplex relationships.

4.4 Employment Accessibility in an American Metropolitan

Area

The Boston Metropolitan Area, which covers more than two thousand square
miles of land and aeeommodates more than 4 million people, was seleeted for a
ease study. The ease study was foeused on employment aeeessibility beeause
eommuting and teleeommuting data were more available in eomparison with data
for other types of travel or teleeommunieation usage. It eonsisted of two parts. The
first part examined existing patterns of variations of employment aeeessibility
aeross geographie loeations and travel modes. It was an empirieal analysis of 1990
data using equations 4.1 and 4.2. The seeond part explored future ehanges in em-
ployment aeeessibility eaused by a large-seale deployment ofteleeommunieations.
It was a simulation ofsome future scenario using equations 4.5, 4.6, 4.7, and 4.8.
Eaeh part was implemented with a program written in the C language.

Auto Ownership and Polarization in Employment Accessibility

This analysis was based on demographie and employment data originating from
the 1990 Census and peak-hour travel time matriees for auto and transit obtained
from the Central Transportation Planning Staff (CTPS) in Boston. The metropoli-
tan area was deseribed by data assoeiated with 787 traffie analysis zones (TAZs).
The measurement of aeeessibility was made with alternative impedanee funetions
- the exponential funetion and several travel-time-threshold funetions, which gen-
erate similar results. The f01l0wing findings were obtained eonsistently, no matter
whether aeeessibility was measured for a1l workers or only for low-skilled work-
ers:
First, the eentral loeation of the inner city still gives the residents advantage in
aeeessing spatially distributed jobs. For workers who use a given transportation
mode, those living near the eentral business distriet (CBD) have relatively higher
employment aeeessibility. In general, workers would not inerease their employ-
ment aeeessibility by moving to the suburbs.
Seeond, although eentral loeation of residenee offers an advantage, auto owner-
ship is the key determinant. More than half of the TAZs are accessibility-rich for
workers eommuting by auto, whereas only a very small proportion of the TAZs
are accessibility-rich for those eommuting by publie transit. In fact, most of the
62 Q. Shen

workers who live in the suburbs and cOinmute by auto have higher employment
accessibility than those who live in the central city but commute by public trans-
portation.
Third, for a large proportion of the TAZs located in the poor neighborhoods of
the central city, the general employment accessibility is rather low because the
level of auto ownership is low. The location advantage of these TAZs is in most
cases more than offset by the low level of auto ownership.
Therefore, in a metropolitan area that is shaped by the automobile, geographic
location is of decreased significance in defining spatial relationships, whereas
travel mode has become critical. Regardless where they live, transit-dependent
groups are faced with a major obstacle in accessing job opportunities and social
services. This conclusion is consistent with the empirical finding that the lack of
auto ownership significantly reduces the chance for low-skilled workers to find
and keep jobs (Ong 1996). It is also broadly consistent with the widely accepted
view that changes in the geography of opportunity have aggravated the economic
and social problems ofthe central city (Kasarda 1995, Teitz 1997, Wilson 1996).
However, it provides a new insight by showing clearly that the problem is not 10-
cation per se, but the increasing spatial barrier for a high percentage of low-skilled
workers who are dependent on the limited service of public transportation. It sug-
gests that planning and policy making should focus on interaction instead of loca-
tion, because even if there were better residential locations for the poor, the
location advantage would be very limited, compared with the disadvantage associ-
ated with transit dependence.

Telecommuting and Changes in Employment Accessibility

A number of assumptions were made in order to construct a scenario of the future

of commuting and telecommuting in the Boston Metropolitan Area. They were
made based in part on empirical studies of telecommuting in the United States
conducted by a number of researchers (Handy and Mokhtarian 1996, Mokhtarian
1990, Salomon and Mokhtarian 1997, US. DOT 1993). Specifically, it was as-
sumed that approximately 45 percent ofworkers in the metropolitan area would be
potential telecommuters. The percentage varies from one zone to another, depend-
ing on income and other factors. In addition, it was assumed that approximately 12
percent of jobs in the metropolitan area can be accessed through either transporta-
tion or telecommunications, and that roughly 2 percent of jobs are accessible only
to people who have telecommunication capabilities. These percentages also vary
from one zone to another, depending on the occupational composition of employ-
ment in each zone. Furthermore, it was assumed that on average, telecommuters
take two job-related round-trips every week. Finally, it was assumed that tele-
commuters have the same transportation mode split as the rest of the labor force.
These assumptions enabled variables in the accessibility measures to be estimated.
 The Changing Geography of Opportunity 63

Accessibility Change
o
0
<-0.19
-0.19 - -0.14
0 -0.13 - -0.08 o 5 10 15 20 Miles
-0.07 - -0.02

Figure 4.1. Decrease in employment accessibility for workers who travel by auto and who
are not potential telecommuters.
64 Q. Shen

Accessibility Change
<0.09
0.09 - 0.12
0.13-0.16
0.17 - 0.20 AN
o 5 10 15 20 Miles

Figure 4.2. Increase in employment accessibility for workers who travel by auto and who
are potential telecommuters.

Not surprisingly, the first finding of this part of the study is that for workers
who travel by a given transportation mode, their employment accessibility will
decrease if they do not have telecommuting capabilities. Of course, the effect is
generally the opposite for those who have such capabilities.
 The Changing Geography of Opportunity 65

The second finding, which is more intriguing, is that the magnitude of accessi-
bility change is related to the pre-existing geographical configuration of the met-
ropolitan area. Figure 4.1 depicts the pattern of accessibility decrease for workers
who commute by auto and who are not potential telecommuters. 4 The amount of
loss is positively correlated with the pre-existing level of accessibility, as the
greatest losses occur in the central-city area and the smallest at the periphery.5
Figure 4.2 shows the pattern of accessibility increase for workers who commute
by auto and who are potential telecommuters. It also exhibits a distinctive, al-
though more complicated, spatial pattern. In this case, the greatest gains occur in a
suburban ring and the smallest gains both at the center and on the edge of the met-
ropolitan area. Similar relationships between the magnitude of accessibility
change and the pre-existing geography are observed in the results for workers who
commute by public transit. The same findings can also be obtained from Figure
4.3 and Figure 4.4. These scatter charts show the relationships between the magni-
tude of accessibility change and the pre-existing level of accessibility for different
categories ofworkers classified by travel mode and telecommuting capability.

0.30
8, 0.20
c:::
.!
(J
0.10
0.00
~ -0.10
.a
'iij -0.20

j -0.30 1
-0.40
-0.50 -'------------..,.---.,------....;...----~
0.00 0.50 1.00 1.50 2.00 2.50 3.00 3.50 4.00
Pre~xisting Level of Accessibility
i. W~hout Telecommuting Capability With Telecommuting Capability I

Figure 4.3. Relationship between the change and the pre-existing level of employment
accessibility for workers who travel by auto.

4 In Figure 4.1, Figure 4.2 , and Figure 4.5, the equal interval scheme is used to c1assify the
zones into four groups based on the magnitude of accessibility change.

5 Readers who are interested in seeing maps of existing levels of employment accessibility
for workers who travel by different modes in the Boston Metropolitan Area are referred to
an earlier paper by this author (Shen 1998b).
66 Q. Shen

0.15 r - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - ,
&
c:
0.10
.! 0.05
c..> 0.00
~ -0.05 C:~~iiI...~ . . . c:---

:s -0.10
'<~
-0.15
Ö -0.20 +--------~-
-0.25 .L...-_ _ _ _--+_ _ _ _ _ _ __ _ _ _ _ _ _ __ ~

0.00 0.50 1.00 1.50 2.00

Pre-existing Level of Accessibility

, • Without Telecommuting Capability
I
With Telecommuting Capability I

Figure 4.4. Relationship between the change and the pre-existing level of employment
accessibility for workers who travel by public transit.

The third finding is that teleeommuting inereases the overall level of employ-
ment aeeessibility for zones where there are higher pereentages of wealthier
households, but reduees the overall level of employment aeeessibility for zones
where poorer households predominate. The primary reason is that low-ineome,
low-skilled workers are less likely to be potential teleeommuters. This outcome is
displayed in Figure 4.5. Geographically, zones that show a substantial decline in
the general level of accessibility are highly eoneentrated in the eentral city.
The fourth finding is that the magnitude of losses and gains in the general level
of employment aeeessibility is usually quite modest. The largest pereentage
change is only 15 percent. Approximately three-quarters of the zones either de-
erease or inerease their general level of aceessibility by less than 5 percent. There-
fore, if teleeommunications only partially substitute transportation, as it is
assumed in this study, the spatial strueture of the metropolitan area will eertainly
not be dissolved.Overall, the deployment of telecommunieations eauses the loea-
tion advantage of the urban center to deerease. In fact, the importanee of geo-
graphie loeation is generally redueed. In that sense, advaneed spatial teehnologies
lead to loeation equalization. This proeess is aeeompanied by further polarization
in aceessibility along the social dimension. The most distinetive social eonse-
quenee is that the wealthier and more edueated residents who ean use the ad-
vaneed spatial teehnologies beeome better off, whereas the poorer and less
edueated residents who eannot use these teehnologies beeome worse-off. The so-
eial distribution of aeeessibility gains and losses is interrelated with, rather than
independent of, the pre-existing geography, whieh supports the argument made by
 The Changing Geography of Opportunity 67

Accessibility Change
D <-0.04
Cl -0.04 - 0.00
D 0.01 - 0.05 1\ o 5 10 15 20 Milas
_ 0.06 - 0.10 L..l
N

Figure 4.5. Change in the overall level of employment accessibility when telecommuting
becomes an option for many workers.

a number of researchers (Gillespie and Robins 1989, Wheeler et a/1998). At the

community level, telecommunications weaken the position of the central city and
strengthen the position of the suburbs in the geography of opportunity. On the
other hand, it is also important to note that the magnitude of changes in the general
68 Q. Shen

level of employment accessibility is quite modest. Therefore, despite significant

impacts oftelecommunications, the spatial structure ofthe metropolitan area in the
foreseeable future will inherit many basic characteristics ofthe one existing today.

Discussion

The case study of employment accessibility in Boston Metropolitan Area has

demonstrated the usefulness of the approach described in this chapter. However, it
has also revealed a number of important issues. Some ofthese issues are related to
data. Empirical data on which communities and individuals have what kinds of
telecommunications capabilities are not currently available in any systematic
form. Therefore, variations among communities and individuals in terms of avail-
ability and quality of technologies cannot be realistically captured. This kind of
variation can be substantial, because adequate telecommunications service may
not be available in the near future to some communities, especially those located
far away from the metropolitan center. Similarly, empirical data on location
choice and travel behavior of telecommuters are not available. Consequently, it is
impossible to estimate accurately so me of the variables and parameters of the ex-
tended accessibility measure, such as telecommuters' mode split and travel fre-
quency. The lack of empirical data often forces researchers to make various
assumptions, including ones that are rather simplistic. Obviously, it is imperative
to explore mechanisms for collecting spatially disaggregated data on telecommu-
nications and related activities. For example, governmental agencies in charge of
surveys and censuses of population and industries may find it both desirable and
feasible to ask respondents questions about telecommuting.
Some other issues are regarding the extended accessibility measure itself. It is
not clear whether embedding telecommunication-based activities into a spatial
interaction formulation is always appropriate. While equations 4.6 and 4.7 are
basically sound for representing the potentials for interaction in the context of
commuting and telecommuting, their applicability to other contexts remains a
question. Furthermore, even in a context where a spatial interaction formulation is
appropriate, the specification of impedance based solelyon the time variable may
limit the analytical power of the extended accessibility measure. It is conceivable
that in so me cases the main question is under what conditions people will choose
to activate their telecommunications potentials given alternative modes of access,
alternative goods for consumption, and time and budget constraints. Therefore, it
is important to explore the possibility to construct alternative impedance functions
that include these economic factors. Almost three decades ago, Wilson (1970)
developed a budget version of a spatial interaction model in which the tradeoff
between housing rent and transportation costs is specified. His approach can per-
haps be extended to include the telecommuting variable.
 The Changing Geography of Opportunity 69

4.5 Conclusion

This chapter has presented a unified analytical framework for understanding the
spatial and social effects of both transportation and telecommunication technolo-
gies. This analytical framework characterizes these effects by measuring changes
in accessibility. Its key component is a set of accessibility measures that incorpo-
rate not only the traditional land use and transportation components but also the
telecommunications component. Travel impedance is specified for the telecom-
munications component on the basis of empirical evidence that shows partial sub-
stitution of these technologies for travel. The resulting framework allows
consistent and meaningful comparison of accessibility levels across geographic
locations, travel mo des, and telecommunications capabilities.
With this unified analytical framework, one can examine more rigorously the
ways in which the automobile and telecommunications interact with location and
social variables in creating a new geography of opportunity in American metro-
politan areas. In particular, the new framework can serve as a useful tool for un-
derstanding the likely consequences of a large-scale deployment of digital
information and communication technologies. Structured explorations were under-
taken to understand how different socioeconomic groups, defined by their avail-
able options of spatial technologies as weIl as by their residential locations, fare in
the emerging geography of opportunity. Effects on communities were also exam-
ined, by aggregating the effects on the individuals. As an effort to go beyond ab-
stract discussion and generalization, the analytical framework was applied to a
case study of employment accessibility in the Boston Metropolitan Area. Existing
spatial configurations were analyzed, and likely future changes were simulated.
Some of the research findings are not surprising. As it is commonly believed,
advanced spatial technologies reinforce polarization among socioeconomic
groups. The level of accessibility generally increases for those who have tele-
communications capabilities, but decreases for those who depend on more tradi-
tional transportation means. Wealthier communities, inc1uding most of those in the
suburbs, are better off because their residents tend to have telecommunications
capabilities. In contrast, poorer communities, especially those in the central city,
are worse off. Unless effective policies are implemented to make new telecommu-
nications a viable option for disadvantaged groups, the resulting spatial and social
effects will undoubtedly aggravate the problems ofthe central city.
There are important new insights generated by this research. One useful insight
is that geographic location is overall of reduced importance in determining the
potential for spatial interactions in the information age. A good location is no
longer an effective substitution for access to advanced spatial technologies. Spatial
relationships are increasingly defined by technological and fundamentally social
factors. This suggests that in order to improve the situations of disadvantaged
groups, planning and policy making should focus on interaction rather than nar-
rowly on location. Another important insight is that the distribution of accessibil-
ity benefits generated by new technologies is dependent on the existing spatial
70 Q. Shen

configurations of a metropolitan area. This suggests that it is essential to examine

carefully the interaction between telecommunications and location, transportation,
and social factors and to identifY potential synergies.
For the purpose of identifYing directions for future research, it is important to
point out that the practical value of this analytical approach is currently limited by
the lack of empirical data on telecommunications and related activities. More spe-
cifically, so me of the variables and parameters of the extended accessibility meas-
ure are not accurately estimated. Consequently, application of this framework
necessarily involves many assumptions. Where to obtain the data and how to cali-
brate the parameters are acute questions that need to be addressed.
It will also be crucial to answer the question of how generally applicable this
analytical approach iso In particular, the spatial interaction formulation is based on
commuting and telecommuting behaviors. It is not currently clear whether this
formulation is appropriate in other contexts.
In addition, the research described in this chapter represents only one possible
way to measure the effects of new telecommunications. The approach is based on
concepts and methods developed in geographic sciences. Its focus is on character-
izing and interpreting the changing spatial relationships in metropolitan areas as
measured by changes in the potential for spatial interaction. Economic factors
such as budget constraint and tradeoff between alternative goods have not been
directly included in the analytical framework. Needless to say, advanced spatial
technologies come with both benefits and costs. It will be an excellent comple-
ment if so me future research can develop alternative vers ions of accessibility
measures that are useful for rigorous economic analysis of the changing urban
geography.
Furthermore, this research examines only the spatial effects of telecommunica-
tions as measured by changes in the potentials for direct interactions between op-
portunity seekers and opportunities. These spatial effects can be considered as
only part of the total (Niles 1994). Another substantial aspect of the effects can be
indirectly measured by indicators such as changes in the cost, quality, choice, and
convenience of virtually all types of goods and services we consume. Is the distri-
bution of these indirect benefits much more equal geographically and socially?
This is another important question for future research.

References
Atkinson, R.D. 1998. Technologieal change and eities. Cityseape, 3: 129-70.
Batty, M. 1996. Aeeess and information: How the new eleetronie media ehanges everything
geographieal but perhaps ehanges nothing! In CoucIelis, H. (ed.) Spatial Teehnologies,
Geographie Information, and the City. Teehnieal Report 96-10, pp. 42-4. National Center
for Geographie Information and Analysis, University of California, Santa Barbara.
Berry, B. 1973. The Human Consequenees ofUrbanization. New York: St. Martin's Press.
Castells, M. 1996. The Rise of the Network Society. Oxford: Blaekwell.
CoucIelis, H. (ed.) 1996. Spatial Teehnologies, Geographie Information, and the City.
Teehnieal Report 96-10, National Center for Geographie Information and Analysis, Uni-
versity of California, Santa Barbara.
 The Changing Geography of Opportunity 71

Gillespie, A. and Robins, K. 1989. Geographical inequalities: The spatial bias of new
communications techno10gies. Journal ofCommunication, 39:7-18.
Gottmann, J. 1983. The Coming ofthe Transactional City. Institute ofUrban Studies, Uni-
versity of Maryland, College Park.
Hall, P. 1996. Revisiting the nonplace urban realm: Have we come full circle? International
Planning Studies 1:7-15.
Handy, S. and Mokhtarian, P. 1996. Forecasting te1ecommuting: An exploration ofmeth-
odologies and research needs. Transportation 23: 163-90.
Hoffman, D.L. and Novak, T.P. 1998. Bridging the racial divide on the Internet. Science
280:390-1.
Kasarda,1. 1995. Industrial restructuring and changing location ofjobs. In Farley, R. (ed.)
State ofthe Union: America in the I 990s, Vo/ume 1: Economic Trends. New York: Rus-
sei Sage Foundation, 215-67.
Meier, R.L. 1962. A Communications Theory of Urban Growth. Cambridge MA: MIT
Press.
MitchelI, W.J 1995. City of Bits: Space, Place and the Infobahn. Cambridge MA: MIT
Press.
Mokhtarian, P.L. 1990. A typology ofrelationships between telecommunications and trans-
portation. Transportation Research 24:231-42.
Morris, J.M., Dumble, P., and Wigan, M. 1979. Accessibility indicators for transportation
planning. Transportation Research A. 13:91-109.
Niles, I.S. 1994. Beyond Te/ecommuting. Washington DC: Office ofEnergy Research, US
Department ofEnergy.
Office of Technology Assessment, US Congress 1995. The Technological Reshaping of
Metropolitan America. Washington, DC: US Government Printing Office.
Ong, P. 1996. Work and car ownership among welfare recipients. Social Work Research
20: 255-62.
Salomon, I. 1986. Telecommunications and travel relationships: A review. Transportation
Research A 20:223-38.
Salomon, I. and Mokhtarian, P.L. 1997. Why don't you telecommute? Access No. 10:27-
29.
Shen, Q. 1998a. Location characteristics of inner-city neighborhoods and employment ac-
cessibility oflow-wage workers. Environment and Planning B 25:345-65.
Shen, Q. 1998b. Spatial technologies, accessibility, and the social construction of urban
space. Computers, Environment and Urban Systems 22:447-64.
Teitz, M.B. 1997. American planning in the 1990s: Part 11, the dilemma ofthe cities. Urban
Studies 34:775-95.
U.S. DOT 1993. Transportation Implications ofTelecommuting. Washington DC: US Gov-
ernment Printing Office.
Webber, M.M. 1964. The urban place and the nonplace urban realm. In M. M. Webber,
editor, Explorations into Urban Structure. Philadelphia PA: University of Pennsylvania
Press, 79-153.
Webber, M.M. 1996. Tenacious cities. In Couclelis, H. (ed.) Spatial Technologies, Geo-
graphie Information, and the City. Technical Report 96-10, pp. 214-18. National Center
for Geographie Information and Analysis, University of California, Santa Barbara.
Weibull,1.W. 1976. An axiomatic approach to the measurement of accessibility. Regional
Science and Urban Economics 6:357-79.
72 Q. Shen

Wheeler, J.O., Muller, P., Thrall, G., and Fik, T. 1998. Economic Geography, Third edition.
New York: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
Wilson, A.G. 1970. Entropy in Urban and Regional Modelling. London: Pion Limited.
Wilson, WJ. 1996. When Work Disappears. New York: Alfred A. Knopf.
5 Space, Time and Sequencing: Substitution
at the Physical / Virtual Interface

Pip Forer and Otto Huisman

Spatial Analysis Facility, Department ofGeography, University of Auckland,

10 Symonds St., P.B. 92019, Auckland 1001, New Zealand.
Email: p.forer@auckland.ac.nz;o.huisman@auckland.ac.nz

5.1 Introduction

This ehapter is eoneemed with methodologies for determining aeeessibility at

an individual and aggregate level, both from the perspeetive of what the indi-
vidual ean aeeess and of the degree to whieh many individuals ean aeeess a 10-
eation. Throughout this ehapter, however, the authors view aeeessibility as a
time-spaee phenomenon, both in terms of how aeeessibility should be eon-
eeived and of how it should be reported. In essenee, we attempt to take the
spaee-time view ofHägerstrand (1970; 1975) and build from it a framework for
defining aeeessibility in an enhaneed way, making that definition operational
for large numbers of people and extraeting new forms of expression and query
from it along the way.
The speeifie foeus of the ehapter eoneentrates on issues surrounding virtual
(multi-modal eommunieations) teehnologies and their influenee on aeeessibility
and its definition. This is a eomplex area where rampant technical innovation
and uneonstrained speeulation on its impact go hand in hand. To allow the
chapter to evaluate some ideas in this area as rigorously as possible we have
sought to find a eontext where the issues are relatively simplified, and to draw
examples from this domain as we develop our ideas. The domain ehosen in this
case is University edueation and the aeeess needs of students. The struetured
nature of student Jives, the growing pressures on their daily sehedules and the
potential significanee of virtual teehnologies in the delivery of aspeets of Uni-
versity leaming provide the justifieation for this.
The chapter develops through six further sections. The next one considers the
general nature of accessibility as embodied in the space-time view of Häger-
strand, and how virtual activities can alter the definition of aecessibility and the
way that altered accessibiJity reflects altered spatio-temporal constraints. The
third deseribes the basis of current student lives, and reviews a specific imple-
mentation of a cellular, three-dimensional model of aecessibility and interaction
based on physical presence and time-geographie concepts. The fourth addresses
issues of aggregation, elaborates practieally on this by developing aggregate
74 P. Forer and O. Huisman

measures of accessibility from individual student lifelines. Section five dis-

cusses how virtual technologies in education may alter the parameters for activ-
ity scheduling through total or partial substitution, with significant implications
for accessibility patterns. The sixth section works through an example of the
possible impact of 'virtualization' of a course using the original cellular model
with refined scheduling constraints. The chapter concludes with abrief discus-
si on on the wider application of the concepts and techniques presented.

5.2 Some Reflections on Accessibility in Space-time

The concepts of access and accessibility are used widely within geography and
owe their origin to early quantitative and theoretical work in the 1960s (Bunge
1966, Warntz 1967, Garrison 1960, Kissling 1966). In a spatial sense, accessi-
bility is both a specific and aggregate property. As a specific condition it de-
scribes individual circumstances, i.e., either whether an individual can access a
point, or whether they can access a facility at a point. The basic question is can
A get to XY? As an aggregate property most working definitions seek to provide
a generalized statement of what can be reached. This often involves showing
the relative advantage of one location over another across what is usually pre-
sented as a smooth surface but in reality is usually a derivative from point val-
ues on a network. An accessibility surface often answers the question of how
many Bs can get to place XY, for all XY?
Aceessibility is generally about physieal movement and physieal aeeess. The
simplest spatial aecessibility measures use isotropie space and Euclidean dis-
tance, but most of the definitions used in research employ a model of space de-
rived from the context of loeal transport systems and the realities of travel and
mobility. Cost and time measures of distance, defined through a transport net-
work model, are the most common definitions of separation used (Weibull
1976; 1980; Pirie 1979). For aggregate descriptions of access, the measure of
distance is frequently modified using a non-linear transformation or a threshold
distance value for access. When travel time is used as a distance measure in the
spatially conceptualized view of access, then mobility and accessibility are
clearly twinned concepts (Dijst and Vidakovic 1997). Pooler (1995) and Handy
and Niemeier (1997) provide reviews of spatial accessibility measures.
There are a number of reasons for questioning spatial measures of accessibil-
ity, some of which relate to their failure to acknowledge non-spatial constraints
on access, such as the use of authority to ban entry to places. Another critique is
to note that accessibility, from a process perspective, is more fundamentally
about whether (or how fully, or at what marginal cost) person A can be at loca-
tion XY for a given purpose. The italicized component often requires a facility
constraint to be met (for instance, a golf course to play golf on). It almost al-
ways requires a minimum temporal stay, so that the individual query above is
 Space, Time, and Sequencing 75

rewritten as can A get to XY for duration t? The same is true for the aggregate
queries. Inevitably, the duration requirement is specific to the task to be under-
taken, which is itself constrained within a regime of required, and competing,
personal activities. This is in turn mediated by mobility and changes in spaces
defined by parameters such as travel time (Janelle 1968, Chapin 1974, Kwan
1998, Miller, Wu, and Ming 1999).
This latter, dynamic conceptualization of space and accessibility has major
implications. First, the notion of a generic, purpose-independent accessibility
surface or definition of accessibility becomes untenable. Access varies depend-
ing on the process being considered (the conditions that a particular activity
requires to be met: for instance timing or minimum duration). Second, space
and time (whether modified by transport or not) are no longer an independent
metric for directly mediating accessibility, since the criteria by which a place is
deemed accessible may be predominantly constrained by scheduling options.
These are themselves created by the available options for scheduling other ac-
tivities (which are in turn constrained by different, process-specific time and
space issues). In asense, scheduling is itself a spatial agent in modifying acces-
sibility for the individual, since the ability to interact with others and make use
of facilities or services is conditional upon the existence of, or the ability of
individuals to create, appropriate sequences of time slots to perform activities.
The intermeshing of these demands throughout the day already creates quite
distinct diurnal geographies in the city (Janelle, Klinkenberg, and Goodchild
1998).
Third, in terms of virtual technologies, we see a new partitioning between
what activities can be undertaken virtually through communications media and
what can only be done through physical presence. This is only in part a re-
classification of entire activities into the virtual sphere (see Chapter 14 by
Kwan and Chapter 17 by Occelli). We also see the emergence of a continuum
of optional modes for undertaking specific activities, which allow choice-driven
substitution of virtual for physical presence, or vice versa. Central to this parti-
tioning and choice are issues related to the economics of delivery and the (ac-
tual or perceived) quality of the virtual versus physical experience.
We can expect that these trade-offs vary greatly between different activities
and individuals. In either event, virtual technologies exercise two influences on
issues of access. On the one hand, virtual technologies generally permit the ac-
tor greater flexibility in allowing the re-grouping of activities in a schedule, and
so influence the possible schedule choices for the remaining activities. On the
other hand, physical access to virtual technologies may not be spatially or indi-
vidually ubiquitous (see Chapter 9 by Harvey and Macnab and Chapter 10 by
Moss and Townsend; and see Salomon 1988). Thus, two geographies of access
emerge within any individual's schedule. One is a geography based on the (in-
ternally aspatial) activity sequences of web-based contacts (within which time is
the significant dimension to juggle), and the other is based on the needs of the
physical-presence activities. Of course, these two geographies intermesh, and
over time the nature and interaction of both is changing as technology changes
access to, and capabilities of, the Web.
76 P. Forer and O. Huisman

This chapter seeks to explore these ideas through considering a particular do-
main, in this case that of University students. University education is an excel-
lent context in which to consider the application of new technologies. Student
life styles are currently heavily structured by scheduled teaching situations such
as lectures, laboratories and tutorials. New IT is providing a range of options
that offer trade-offs in the way that these traditionallearning experiences can be
delivered (Forer 1998), This will impact equally on individual lifelines, and
city-wide patterns of accessibility.
The next section juxtaposes issues of evolving student lifestyles with a cellu-
lar space-time approach to modeling individual accessibility (Forer 1993; 1995;
1997; Huisman, Forer, and Albrecht 1997).

5.3 A Space-time Approach to Modeling Accessibility with

Students

The Elements of Current Student Life-Styles

Much of the empirie work on which the examples within this paper are based
derives from a study of student life styles at the University of Auckland. The
city of Auckland has over one million inhabitants, and, as in many larger cities,
students must cope with commuting and parking restrietions to study at a cen-
tral site, such as the University of Auckland's main campus, which hosts over
20,000 students. They must also juggle with the unallocated time in their day so
that they are able to sustain paid work, either in the central area or elsewhere.
Further details of these contextual issues can be found in Boswell (1995) and
Forer (1998).
Student lifelines are well suited for analysis because it is possible to identify
major components oftheir necessary daily activities from known course choices
and their related formal teaching timetables. Having defined the suburb a no-
tional student may live in during term time, we can add to this the location of
study and the formal components of their study timetables to define the major
marker episodes in their working day. (i.e., specified activities of which the
location and starting and ending times are known and largely defined (Lennt0rp
1976, Hägerstrand 1982)). It is also possible to use some simplifying assump-
tions to move from records of location and timetable to the creation of a no-
tional activity schedule for domestic chores, sleeping and study for the whole
day, with associated space-time coordinates. This is discussed in Huisman and
Forer (1998a). These mandatory episodes can in turn form the basis for analysis
of individual accessibility to activities in the remaining periods of discretionary
time.
 Space, Time, and Sequencing 77

Individual Space-time Paths and the Ability to Access

It is argued elsewhere (Forer 1997, and see Chapter 16 by Hanson) that Häger-
strand's conceptualization of lifelines achieved limited deployment because of
the difficulty of making paths and prisms easily operational. These difficulties
related to all facets of generating and modeling activity-based data, for both
lifelines and prisms. In recent years a number of authors have noted the poten-
tial of GIS to cope with two key components in understanding space-time ac-
cessibility: the locational data of individuals, and the issues of movement
through transport networks (Miller 1991, Mey and ter Heide 1997, Löytönen
1998). However, implementations of systems to model lifelines within the ge-
ometry of the space-time aquarium remained relatively few. In 1993 one of the
authors developed a framework for implementing lifelines and prisms in a cel-
lular way, using a combination of raster and network methods to populate a
three-dimensional matrix with binary values denoting absence or potential pres-
ence (Forer 1993; 1995; 1997). This work also proposed defining other actual
or potential space-time objects, for instance an open library, in the same way
within the cellular framework. Figure 5.1 illustrates the kind of representation
developed, as weH as an example of how object types could be combined to
answer spatio-temporal queries through Boolean operations on object masks.

Figure 5.1. An exploded view of three binary masks for a rectangular area over five
time periods. The left-hand mask displays an individual's prism. The central mask repre-
sents three facilities that are open at different times. The right hand mask is a mask ofthe
other two derived from a simple AND operation, and represents the times that the indi-
vidual can be at the facilities while they are open. (Source: Forer 1993).

A mask in this respect is simply a set of identically coded cells in a three-

dimensional space-time grid associated with an individual or object over a
specified time, usually a day. The basic individual mask is binary, includes both
lifelines and prisms, and has cells containing a 'I' wherever an individual or
object is present or could be present, and otherwise a zero. Figure 5.1 shows
78 P. Forer and O. Huisman

two basic masks, and a derived accessibility measure of the library access op-
tions in space and time for that individual. The major limitation in deriving such
masks remains the ability to move from coping with clearly defined marker
events to coping with activity schedules where only a desired activity mix,
rather than precise event timing and location, are known.
The construction of prisms is normally based around gaps between known
marker events. For the present implementation, standard allocation procedures
and network data structures are used, in normal and reverse modes, to identify
locations accessible to individuals given a specific travel time from a marker
event and current mobility conditions for the individual. In some circumstances
raster processing is also used to identify travel time across open spaces, such as
large parks. These data are then used to populate a three dimensional binary
matrix. The process for static objects such as libraries is much simpler.
A matrix of space-time object types was subsequently proposed (Huisman,
Forer, and Albrecht 1997), which has been extended to include virtual events
and activities (Table 5.1). Intermittent events are defined by their spatial extent
and location, and the periods of time for which they are accessible, i.e., their
opening or functioning hours. Continuous events represent those objects and
events that exist at any point in time (such as the actual or possible location of
an individual). In the virtual realm these events and activities represent loca-
tions in virtual space (servers or websites) that can be physically (though re-
motely) accessed within temporal constraints.

Table 5.1. Representingpresence of objects and events in space-time

Actual Potential Virtual

presence presence presence

Intermittent events Static facilities Mobile services Online services!

and amenities and facilities resources

Continuous events Individuallife- Physical action Virtual action

lines spaces spaces
Source: Modifiedfrom Huisman, Forer, andAlbrecht (1997)

Overall, it is therefore possible to routinely generate space-time masks in

complex real-world situations that can show actual and potential physical pres-
ence for an individual or other object, over a specified time. Much of what can
then be achieved sterns from a threefold extension of the concept of individual
binary masks. The first of these is the creation of syntax for the investigation of
interaction between individuals and/or objects through the combination of bi-
nary masks. The second is the population of the masks with non-binary values,
which could represent a number of concepts, such as possible presence in a cell
or remaining available time in that cell. A third is to derive various spatial or
volumetrie outcomes from the masks, which provide a direct statement about
 Space, Time, and Sequencing 79

accessibility or potential interaction. A map of maximum duration for an activ-

ity available at a point would be such an example, and others are suggested be-
low.
The establishment of this rather extended view of Hägerstrand's concept is
shown in diagrammatic form in Figure 5.2. The main strengths ofthis approach
inc1ude an ability to generate space-time measures of accessibility, to model
impacts of shifts in marker events, and to cope with some of the issues of virtu-
alized access, at least conceptually.

5.4 Generalized Volumes and What or Where is Accessible

Individual accessibility to a point is easily modeled by individual masks, which

can also reveal aspects such as length of access, timing of access, and existence
of multiple access opportunities. However, the accessibility of any space-time
point to a group of individuals, or the likely number of members of a group at a
space-time point, is a matter of aggregate behavior. These aggregate patterns,
too, can be derived from individual masks, through their redefinition and com-
bination.
In this section, we consider accessibility as involving the ability of an individ-
ual to be at a location for a minimum time needed to undertake an activity. Im-
plicit in this is that the individual has the discretion to move to certain points.
Aggregate accessibility is consequently derived from a combination of numer-
ous individual lifelines and prisms. The simplest question we can derive in-
volves identifYing space-time locations where the most people can
simultaneously meet, however briefly. Simply adding together N binary masks
representing the lifelines of N individuals will provide an aquarium in which
cell values reflect accessibility, in these terms. The values will potentially range
from N (all present) to 0 (inaccessible to all). If the requirement is to know how
many people can visit a place for a set duration, say 30 minutes, then individual
masks can be trimmed down to inc1ude only prism volumes that extend through
cells that represent duration of at least 30 minutes, and then be added together.
80 P. Forer and O. Huisman

CU TOMI ED
I DIVID · ALAND
AGGREGATE
VOL ME

POTENTIAL
I TERACTIO

•
RFACE

.
APPU! TIO
DOMAI
L
"-------------"
c=::::>
c: c::>
=> 0 /

LANGUAGE AND DESCRIPTION

AGE TS
A
t ,. T -i
CON TRAlNT

~
I TI
"
SPATlAL
TR CTUREAND
PROPERTIES

Figure 5.2. Extending time-geographie eoneepts. Source: Huisman and Forer (1998a)

If what is required is a measure of likely interaetion, then the eontents of the

prism eell ean be weighted to refleet some model of likely presenee based on
the spatial behavior of an individual given a partieular window of available
time. Onee again, the masks ean be eombined to provide an aggregate pieture of
aecessibility. The most powerful artifaets to emerge from this are the resultant
spaee-time volumes, whieh show details of both spatial and temporal variations
in aecessibility or likely interaetion.
We have diseussed elsewhere a number of derivatives from single and aggre-
gate masks (Huisman and Forer 1998a). Figure 5.3 shows one example ereated
 Space, Time, and Sequencing 81

from analysis of 100 students. This surface shows the number of discretionary
people/minutes that can be spent at a location by the target group between the
ho urs of 12 no on and 2:00 p.m. of a given day. Essentially it is one measure of
the accessibility of each point to the student body, or of possible student interac-
tion over space during this time period.
In general, then, masks can be derived to show both actual presence (lifelines)
and potential presence (prisms) in a cellular form. These can be combined in
various ways to answer queries and to yield aggregate patterns of accessibility.
The main required ingredient is an ability to specity the space-time location of
marker events. The next section briefly discusses the challenge of applying this
in an operational context where marker events may need to be derived, and
leads on to consider how virtual meetings could be modeled and integrated into
models of accessibility.

/ Auddantl Unh ~I",i ll

.

Heioht denotes high le el of accessibility

a defined by person-minute available at location

Figure 5.3. Potential access and interaction in Auckland. Accessibility surface showing
the number of personlminutes that can be spent at a given location between the hours of
12 noon and 2 p.m. by the sampIe of 100 students. Tbe height of each grid cell is propor-
tional to the number ofperson-minutes for which it can be occupied.
82 P. Forer and O. Huisman

5.5 Tbe Cbanging Nature of Student Life-Styles

University timetables do show some evidence of greater flexibility through the

use of short courses and self-paced methods, such as Open Learning. However,
for most students a fairly rigid timetable based on a campus location still dic-
tates their days, as noted above. The growing need to work for money to pay
tuition fees places greater pressure on finding a way, and place, to undertake
paid work (Boswell 1995, George 1998). In this respect students face a chal-
lenge in scheduling that is more structured than for many groups, but in generic
terms their case is typical of a large number of different groups in society who
seek to restructure lifestyles in response to new pressures and opportunities.
However, students may see a greater immediate spatial effect from Cyber or
Virtual technologies than most, because these technologies offer very signifi-
cant possibilities to re-schedule their days. Amongst the benefits offered by
Virtual or Cyber technologies in education are the ability to substitute virtual
and physical experiences at will, and the ability to divorce service delivery from
the need to be at a specific location. Examples would include the optional deliv-
ery of video vers ions of lectures using on-demand video servers, and web-based
tutorials. These can be independent of a campus location, as can be the delivery
of digitally based labs and other Intranet and library resources that can employ
virtual Intranets. The nature ofthese technologies in education, and their impact
on learning options, is widely debated (Peters and Roberts 1998), but one clear
implication of their successful implementation is that learning options for main-
stream students become more flexible. One possible outcome of these technolo-
gies is not a wholesale shift into a virtual or distance learning mode, but rather a
modification of mainstream tuition to embody aspects of both social learning
and distance methods in so called high tech/high touch scenarios (Forer 1997,
1998). This implies a trade-off between virtual and real learning environments,
a situation that may represent the ways in which virtual services or activities
come to integrate with traditional processes in the wider economy.
Current physical access to University results in a student day being composed
of starting and ending times dictated by formal timetable requirements, coupled
with aseries of continuous commitments to lectures and laboratories. Discre-
tionary time between these is often filled with local informal activities, such as
library visits. Timetabling options (in terms of lecture streams) are limited, and
hence it is not uncommon for the timetable to be unhelpful, for instance by con-
taining only two lectures, one at either end of the day. Anecdotal evidence of
students choosing courses so as to minimize such problems is quite widespread.
A more virtual campus would provide flexible access to both formal and dis-
cretionary learning resources. Faculty would probably respond to the techno 1-
ogy by adjusting some aspects of timetabling, and students would react by
scheduling activities differently. For them, virtual technologies could decouple
many aspects of learning delivery from a need to be on campus, and so free up
their control over daily schedules. Library access for many ftmctions could be
 Space, Time, and Sequencing 83

undertaken as effectively at horne, and could be undertaken when desired. Cer-

tain lectures at key times could be viewed from video downloaded to horne at
the student's discretion. In short, students could exercise a choice to substitute
virtual for real presence, and staff might reduce and consolidate the periods of
mandatory real presence. In general, the key times when substitution occurred
might weIl be when physical attendance was problematic because of the need to
keep a block of time c1ear for other activities, or when a day contained large
amounts of dead time. Students would likely seek efficiencies in time use by
having fewer but larger blocks of time on campus. EjJiciencies in this context
could mean simply saving unused time between an early and late lecture, but
more likely might mean the ability to accommodate a major commitment such
as work along with substantial study.
Given this kind of change, if we thought in traditional spatial accessibility
terms, the changes in the tlexibility of learning delivery would show little effect
in terms of accessibility measures, individual or aggregate. However, in a
space-time definition we would expect that the changing life styles would result
in achanging balance between the formal and discretionary parts of the day,
and that this might result in major shifts in discretionary time and spatial oppor-
tunity. The next section details some basic investigations in this area.

5.6 Varying Virtuality and Changing Accessibility

Extreme scenarios of real/virtual substitution are unlikely to prove either popu-

lar or sustainable for the population at large. Even for mundane actions, such as
shopping it is likely that the best cyber-market experience that could be con-
trived will fail to provide the social, tactile and environmental stimuli of the
best shopping experiences imaginable. In almost every area of activity, the most
likely impact of virtualization will be to see virtual services emerge that cater
for minority groups or act to complement the experience of the majority. In
every sphere of activity this will modifY the frequency and nature of physical
trips, as weIl as lead to changes in the nature of the physical process (as it
comes to embody certain virtual aspects to it). In shopping, the nature of Malls
will change to emphasize the competitive edge of real shopping, but malls and
issues of their accessibility will remain. This simply restates more generally the
specific impacts that are expected for virtual technologies in education.
Given this eventuality, two things become clear. One is that people will recast
their time use in new ways, taking into account the ability to tlexibly trade and
aggregate different activities, particularly the ability to c1ump many virtual sub-
stitute activities, which are largely independent of space and time constraints.
The 'real' component of their activity schedules will continue to dominate their
movement decisions, and so space-time constraints will not disappear as a fac-
tor in determining accessibility. However, the nature of the scheduling will be
84 P. Forer and O. Huisman

harder to predict, as the relationship between doing an activity and the need for
a physical presence will be determined by individual deeisions on the trade-offs
of using a virtual option.
If we foeus back on aceessibility as we have treated it in this paper, then de-
fining spaee-time accessibility becomes much harder because the marker events
that define diseretionary periods for access are more difficult to formalize, be-
cause at an individual level the real or virtual option could be seleeted. The real
option is tightly location constrained, the latter is either loosely or minimally
constrained. Furthermore, the link between a location and a function may be-
eome much less deterministic. Real activities frequently rely on the nature of
the plaee that hosts them; virtual activities largely import their own cyberplace
to wherever they are being undertaken. Presence at horne may mean university
work is being done, for instanee, as may presenee in a Cyber-eafe in a loeal
mall. In general, we can expect that even a spaee-time accessibility measure
will become a more generalized representation of aggregate aecess, because of
the mutant nature of the possible virtual/real substitutions. We ean also expeet
that to deploy the space-time framework to understand the operation of vir-
tuallreal systems will require a much greater understanding of the aetivity proc-
esses involved, both in isolation and in the specific contexts ofthe individuals.
In spite of these eaveats, it is worth speculating on how we might view the
impact of a restrieted version of virtualized education as diseussed previously.
An implementation of an aceessibility surfaee for one hundred student lifelines
is described below. Issues of access to cyberspace are addressed in a second,
shorter section. The section also looks at how some of these substitutions eould
be modeled in the cellular space-time model deseribed earlier. It identifies is-
sues in inc1uding virtualized activities in the model, notes the centrality of
scheduling in generating new aetivity patterns in these eireumstanees and dem-
onstrates the impact of virtualizing courses under simple assumptions of sched-
ule ehoices.

Virtual Lectures and Relaxed Scheduling

This analysis works on the known timetables of one hundred notional eom-
merce students in 1996. Their lifelines were developed, and general accessibil-
ity surfaees deriving from their diseretionary time were produced. This process
is described in Huisman and Forer (l998a). In the analysis below, the following
assumptions have been made in respect of modified learning delivery using
virtual technologies:

• Leeture hours are halved due to greater use of Web resources.

• Aetivities, whether virtual or actual, are still required to be performed
within the same 12-hour period (i.e., the same day).
• Students still have access to the same range of transport alternatives as
be fore, with the addition of a virtual resource.
 Space, Time, and Sequencing 85

• Each student in the sampie is assumed to have access to a terminal, irre-

spective of financial costs.

The students have then been allocated new schedules based on these changes
and their lifelines and prisms have been calculated. From this, new aggregate
surfaces of student accessibility have been derived (Figure 5.4). The left colurnn
shows the original access surface, the right colurnn the surfaces resulting from
physical/virtual substitution.
The analysis largely shows that discretionary time is increased, which should
free up student choice considerably and allow easier access to paid work or
other activities. It also shows the spatial pattern ofthis, and demonstrates a sim-
ple way to identify changes that might spring from a given change in learning
delivery. The basic idea could be deployed with more sophistication, for in-
stance by stochastically modeling virtual/real substitutions for particular activi-
ties. This could be traced through their resultant impact on the overall
individual mask and on the aggregation of masks.

Access to Terminals

A significant tenet of activity modeling in the past has been a relatively tight
mapping of activity to location. In many cases the mapping has been one-to-
one: for instance University classes are only at the University campus. In others
a one-to-many relationship has held, as with shoe shopping being possible at
severallocations. Occasionally one location has supported many kinds of activi-
ties, but this is sometimes due to a scale issue, as when a Mall is treated as a
single entity but supports multiple kinds of shopping activity.
Virtual technologies are unlikely ever to be ubiquitously available, in the
sense of there being no restriction on where high-speed links could be made, or
where high quality screens were available. In the short term (a few techno-
nomads aside), getting on to the Web for virtual services will remain tied to
specific nodes. While these will proliferate very quickly, access to them will
remain restricted by a range of constraints, notably the fact that most will be
within private property and subject to log-on restrictions. In the short term the
nodes into cyber-space are likely to be quite specific. For individuals these
could be horne links, links from educational institutions, links from cyber-cafes
or other pay-for-access locations, or links from work. Some of these locations
will be more or less suitable for certain kinds of virtual links. Surfing or e-
mailing a help desk could be done from a cyber-cafe, but undertaking a de-
manding laboratory exercise or downloading video might require a fast link and
a quiet work area. From a modeling point of view, locating the ports to cyber-
space would be simple, and these possible activity points could be used as part
of a student's lifeline and mask. Once again, however, the specific nature of
particular ports brings us back to a detailed consideration of the student's con-
straints and activity needs.
86 P. Forer and O. Huisman

After Substitution

12:00 noon

4:00 p.m.

BEFORE
- ..
AFTER

Figure 5.4. Potential impacts of physical/virtual substitution. The surfaces above illus-
trate the impact of physical/virtual substitution on accessibility patterns at different times
of the day. Each surface illustrates a ten-minute time interval. These figures cover the
same extent as Figure 5.3. On ce again, height represents the possible duration of pres-
ence (physical access). Lightness is used here to illustrate the results better. Physical
access values above range from 0 (flat) to 1000 personlminutes (highest) for the sampIe
of 100 students.

An interesting side issue for universities is whether a virtual component of

learning delivery would encourage more distributed delivery through secondary
campus sites or cyber-ports. At the heart ofthe impact ofvirtual technologies is
an unresolved issue of how and when people need to physically congregate to
pursue leaming to best effect. That issue is both pedagogic and practical, in the
sense that economics often dictates the provision of centralized specialist facili-
 Space, Time, and Sequencing 87

ties. The possibility of new arrangements of campus cells in an urban area,

which better meet student life-style needs though a reallvirtual blend of ap-
proaches, would be an interesting situation to model for real and physical time-
budgets and accessibility.

5.7 Summary: Alternative Concepts and Realities

The discussion above has sought to explore the properties of accessibility that
can be derived from Hägerstrand's dimensional view ofhuman activity. Such a
view is based on atomistic assumptions about an individual's ability to be at a
point (or a point' s ability to be visited), and an aggregation of individual proper-
ties into systematic patterns. It yields a more specific view of accessibility that
is inevitably more closely linked to process and to the scheduling and sequenc-
ing of activities. This is at the same time more powerful but less general than
the traditional spatial formulations of accessibility.
One advantage of this approach is that it implicitly embodies questions that
arise when cyber-activities come into consideration, in that, in general, such
activities are likely to be embedded in a wider process where the virtual/real
trade-off is decided. Many activities, and certainly education, will retain a mix
of virtual and real, where the real component is significant and will retain the
space-time constraints of physical accessibility. The issue in determining how
virtual/real substitution takes place is one that is built around scheduling of the
physical activities within a much less bounded set ofvirtual activities.
In one respect, virtualizing activities throws the entire issue of accessibility
open, in that the one spatial constraint remains the constraint on accessing a
terminal. In another it simply redefines the scheduling task, which as we noted
is in fact a key aspect of defining the marker episodes and thus the residual ar-
eas of discretionary use of time. Aspects of process may define what virtual
activities are best aggregated and best undertaken, and these will then need to
be integrated into a wider context of overall activities. When the necessary vir-
tual and physical markers have been established, a rather different set of acces-
sibility measurements will emerge for the student's discretionary time.
For universities, and for their communities, these changes may have signifi-
cant impacts on the geography of tertiary leaming, although that is not the key
issue under discussion here. The indications are that the ideal form for the uni-
versity, and the likely interactions with its hinterland that are possible, will
change significantly as real and virtual accessibility adjusts to new technolo-
gies. More widely, the same opportunities to interchange the virtual and real
experience will be present in many other spatial processes, including shopping,
working, tourism and socializing. In each case we can expect that physical con-
straints and access will remain important, but that there will be a greater empha-
sis on the nature of the specific processes as determinants of substitution and
88 P. Forer and O. Huisman

the process of activity choice and scheduling. As we know more about different
dimensions of cyber-geographies, perhaps through concepts such as Heikkila's
juzzy club (see Chapter 6), we may be able to develop better ideas on modeling
the two separate geographies (virtual and real) at a more sophisticated level, and
eventually achieve a more satistying integration of the real and virtual compo-
nents of accessibility.

References
Boswell, S. 1995. The Splintering of Student Geographies: Restrueturing of the Tertiary
Edueation Seetor in New Zealand. Unpublished M.A. Thesis. University of Auekland,
New Zealand.
Bunge, W. 1966. Theoretieal geography (2 nd Ed.). Lund Studies in Geography Series C
# 1. Lund: Geerlup.
Chapin, F.S. 1974. Human Aetivity Patterns in the City: What People Do in Time and
Spaee. New York: John Wiley.
Dijst, M., and Vidakovie, V. 1997. Individual action spaee in the city. In Ettema, D. and
Timmermans, H. (eds.). Aetivity Based Approaehes to Travel Analysis. London: El-
sevier Press, 117-34.
Egenhofer, M.J. and Golledge, R.G. (eds.) 1997. Spatial and Temporal Reasoning in
Geographie Information Systems. New York: Oxford University Press.
Forer, P.C. 1993. Geometrie approaehes to the nexus oftime, spaee, and mieroproeess:
Implementing a praetieal model for mundane socio-spatial systems. Paper presented to
Initiative 21, Symposium. Lake Arrowhead, U.S.A.: September.
Forer, P.C. 1995. An implementation ofa diserete 3-d spaee time model ofurban aeees-
sibility. Proeeedings ofthe 1993 Conferenee ofthe New Zealand Geographieal Soci-
ety. Wellington: NZGS, 51-7.
Forer, P.C. 1997. Geometrie approaehes to the nexus of time, spaee, and mieroproeess:
Implementing a praetieal model for mundane soeio-spatial systems. In Egenhofer, M.J.
and Golledge, R.G. (eds.) Spatial and Temporal Reasoning in Geographie Information
Systems. New York: Oxford University Press.
Forer, P.C. 1998. Cyberia and the premature death of distanee. In Peters, M.A. (ed.)
Virtual Teehnologies in Edueation. Wellington: Dunmore Press, 146-70.
Garrison, W.L. 1960. Conneetivity of the inter-state highway system. Papers of the Re-
gional Seienee Association 10: 121-37.
George, G. 1997. Student misery should depress us all. New Zealand Herald, 80etober
A2.
Hägerstrand, T. 1970. What about people in regional seience? Papers of the Regional
Scienee Association 24:7-21.
Hägerstrand, T. 1975. Spaee, time and human eonditions. In Karlqvist A., Lundqvist L
and Sniekars F. (eds.) Dynamic Alloeation of Urban Spaee. Farnborough: Saxon
House,3-14.
Hägerstrand, T. 1982. Diorama, path and projeet. Tijdschrift voor Eeonomisehe en So-
ciale Geografie 73:323-39.
Handy, S.L., and Niemeier, D.A.. 1997. Measuring aeeessibility: an exploration ofissues
and alternatives. Environment and Planning A 29: 1175-94.
Huisman, O. and Forer, P.C. 1998a. Towards a geometrie framework for modeling
spaee-time opportunities and interaction potential. Paper presented at the IGU'98 Con-
 Spaee, Time, and Sequencing 89

ference (Commission on Modeling Geographical Systems) Lisbon, Portugal: 28-29

August.
Huisman, O. and Forer, P.C. 1998b. Computational agents and urban life-spaces: A yre-
liminary investigation of the time-geography of student life-styles. Proceedings 3' In-
ternational GeoComputation Conference. Bristol, UK: 17-19 September. (CD-
ROMIHypertext 23 pages).
Huisman, 0., Forer, P.C., and Albrecht, lA. 1997. A geometrie model ofurban aeeessi-
bility. Proceedings ofthe 25th International AURISA Conference. Christehureh, New
Zealand: 17-21 November (CD-ROM! Hypertext 9 pages).
Janelle, D.G. 1969. Spatial reorganization: a model and eoneept. Annals ofthe Associa-
tion ofAmerican Geographers 58:348-64.
Janelle, D.G. 1986. Metropolitan expansion and the eommunieations-transportation
trade-off. In Hanson, S. (ed.) The Geography of Urban Transportation, Guilford Press,
357-87.
Janelle, D.G., Klinkenberg, B., and Goodehild, M.F. 1998, The temporal ordering of
urban spaee and daily activity patterns for population role groups. Geographical Sys-
tems 5: 117-37.
Kissling, C.C. 1966. Transportation Networks: Accessibility and Urban Functions, Em-
pirical and Theoretical Analysis. Doetoral Thesis in Geography, MeGill University.
Kwan, M. 1998. Space-time and integral measures of individual aeeessibility: A eom-
parative analysis using a point-based framework. Geographical Analysis 30(3): 191-
216.
Lennt0I'p, B. 1976. Paths in spaee-time environments: A time-geographie study of the
movement possibilities of individuals, Lund Studies in Geography, Series B #44.
Lund: Geerlup.
Löytönen, M. 1998. GIS, time geography and health. In Gatrell, A., and Löytönen, M.
(eds.) GIS and Health. (GISDATA VI). London: Taylor and Francis.
Mey, M.G., and ter Heide, H. 1997. Towards spatiotemporal planning: Practieable
analysis of day-to-day paths through spaee and time. Environment and Planning B
24:709-23.
Miller, H.l 1991. Modeling aeeessibility using spaee-time prism eoneepts within geo-
graphical information systems. International Journal of Geographical Information
Systems 5:287-301.
Miller, H.l, Wu, Y., and Ming, C.1999. GIS-based dynamie trafiic eongestion modeling
to support time-critieal logistics. Proceedings of the Hawaii International COnference
on Systems Science, Maui, Hawaii: January.
Peters, M.A. and Roberts, P. (eds.) 1998. Virtual Technologies in Education. Wellington:
Dunmore Press.
Pirie, G.H. 1979. Measuring aceessibility: A review and proposal. Environment and
Planning A 11 :299-312.
Pooler, 1 1995. The use of spatial separation in the measurement of transportation
aeeessibility. Transportation Research A 29(6):421-27.
Salomon, I. 1988. Geographical variations in teleeommunieations systems: The impliea-
tions for loeation ofaetivities. Transportation 14(3):311-27.
Wamtz, W. 1967. Global seienee and the tyranny of spaee. Papers ofthe Regional Sci-
enceAssociation 17:7-21.
Weibull, J.W. 1976. An axiomatie approach to the measurement of aeeessibility. Re-
gional Science and Urban Economics 6(4):357-79.
90 P. Forer and O. Huisman

Weibull, J.W. 1980. On the numerical measurement of accessibility. Environment and

Planning A 12:53-67.
6 The Fuzzy Logic of Accessibility

Eric J. Heikkila

Sehool ofPoliey, Planning and Development, University ofSouthem Califomia

Los Angeles CA 90098-0626, USA. Email: heikkila@use.edu

6.1 Introduction

Accessibility is a measure of association linking people (or places) with so me tar-

get destination or node. In its most general formulation, accessibility is not limited
to a strictly geographie interpretation. Thus, instead of spatial proximity, accessi-
bility may represent the ease with which one may gain entry to certain social or
communications networks. The rapid advent of emerging information technolo-
gies increases the imperative task for geographers and other social scientists to
develop models that are sufficiently robust to accommodate the concept of acces-
sibility in its physical, social, and technological manifestations. To that end, this
paper examines the potential to combine the fuzzy logic of Zadeh (1965) and
Kosko (1992) with the club theory of Tiebout (1956) and Buchanan (1965) to
model accessibility in both geographie and non-geographie contexts.
Club theory argues that individuals voluntarily form groups or clusters to derive
tangible or intangible benefits through mutual association. The Tiebout (1956)
model is an early example of this, where individuals voluntarily vote with their
feet to join clubs called municipalities that in turn provide services in the form of
loeal public goods to their members. Aceess to Tiebout's clubs was by virtue of a
physical presence within the geographical boundaries of the local service area.
Club theory extends the Tiebout model so that club members may derive benefits
not only from physical services but also from the characteristics of fellow club
members, as is the case in professional associations (Comes and Sandler, 1986).
This club theory extension is consistent with but not confined to the implied geo-
graphie setting of the original Tiebout modeL More recently, using factor analysis
and analysis of variance techniques, Heikkila (1996) has demonstrated empirically
that municipalities within complex urban settings, such as Los Angeles, can be
usefully modeled as clubs.
This chapter pushes this idea further, by modeling places (either geographie or
not) as fuzzy clubs based on the concept of fuzzy sets, in which membership is a
matter of degree rather than being restricted to a binary form Cis a member' vs. 'is
not a member'). From this perspective, membership in a fuzzy club supereedes the
concept of accessibility to a place - where greater accessibility corresponds to a
high er degree of membership. Recasting the notion of accessibility in this manner
allows us to tap into the rapidly growing literature on fuzzy logic, the logic of rea-
92 E.J. Heikkila

soning with fuzzy sets. This paper is an initial exploration of the implications and
potential of this approach.
The next section reviews fuzzy set theory and fuzzy logic. Several ideas appear
to be of fundamental importance in this regard. One is that fuzzy sets do not obey
the classical 'laws' of non-contradiction and of the excludable middle that apply to
non-fuzzy sets. This leads to characterizations of entropy that appear to have use-
ful potential in the context of urban systems and other systems of accessibility.
The fuzzy set approach also offers a graphical representation of fuzzy clubs that is
highly intuitive and insightful. In the following section, these ideas are translated
and applied more specifically to modeling the impact of information technology
on systems of accessibility. Three fundamental dichotomies are identified: (1)
participation-withdrawal, (2) entropy-order, and (3) strict-loose partitioning of
clubs. The penultimate section of the paper sets out a strategy for measuring these
phenomena empirically.

6.2 Review of Fuzzy Set Theory

Fuzzy Sets and Fuzzy Operators

In classical set theory all sets A are crisply defined, so that the membership in A
of any element Xi of some referential or universal set X is unambiguously defined
with respect to some bivalent membership function mA(x). Each element Xi either
is or is not a member of the crisp set A:

Xi E A iff mA(x) =1 (6.1)

Xi ~ A iff mA(X) = °
So the membership function in the classical case takes on one of two values, zero
or one.

mA(X): X --* {O,l} (6.2)

Lotfi A. Zadeh (1965) extended the membership function mA(x) to map from X to
the entire unit interval.

mA(X): X --* [0,1] (6.3)

The resulting sets are 'fuzzy' in the sense that the classical yes-no membership
dichotomy now becomes a question of degree or extent. In graphical form, the
extension from crispy to fuzzy sets is represented in Figure 6.1, where in this ex-
 The Fuzzy Logic of Accessibility 93

ample the reference set is areal line representation of geographical space. Here,
the urban-rural dichotomy is transformed into a fuzzier notion of urbanity, where
the height of the membership function determines the extent to which a given 10-
cation Xi is a member of the set of all urban locations. In a similar fashion, fuzzy
sets might describe locations that are 'close to work' or 'Iocated in good school
districts'. Neither crispy nor fuzzy sets need be single peaked in general.

Fuzzy Urban
Set m(x)=l

Crisp Urban Set

l-D geographie spaee

Figure 6.1. Crisp versus fuzzy urban sets.

Three important fuzzy-set operations proposed by Zadeh (1965) in the context

of fuzzy set theory and by Lukasiewicz 1 in the 1920s in the context of continuous
or fuzzy logics are fuzzy-set intersection (by pairwise minimum), union (by pair-
wise maximum) and complementarity (by order reversal). In symbolic form we
have

(6.4)

mAuB(x) = max [mA(x), mB(X)] (6.5)

mAc = 1- mA (6.6)

The intersection and union oftwo fuzzy sets A and Bare depicted in Figure 6.2.

1 According to Kosko (1992), the attribution to Lukasiewicz is given by Rescher (1969).

94 E.J. Heikkila

l-D geographie spaee

Figure 6.2. Intersection and union of fuzzy sets.

The fuzzy set paradigm abolishes two 'laws' of classical set theory. These are the
law 0/ noncontradiction,

AnA'=0 (6.7)

which forbids any overlap between a set A and its complement AC. and the law 0/
the excludable middle,

AuAC=X (6.8)

which states that any set A and its complement A' jointly comprise the universal
or reference set X. In fuzzy set theory, these classical laws only hold for the ex-
treme case that mA(x) E {O, l} 'IIx E X, that is, where the set in question is a crisp
one.

To see that this is so, consider first the law of noncontradiction. By definition, mAc
= l-mA, so

(6.9)

By definition, the measure of elementhood for the null set is zero. That is, m0(xi)
=0 'IIx E X. Thus, the law of noncontradiction can only hold if
 The Fuzzy Logic of Accessibility 95

(6.10)

This in turn ean hold only if mA(x) E {O, I} '<:Ix E X, whieh eorresponds to the
classieal definition of a (erisp) set. A similar line of reasoning applies to the law of
the excluded middle. In this case we need

mAnAc (x) = max [mA, (l-mA)] = 1 '<:Ix E X (6.11)

This condition, too, ean only hold if mA(x) E {O, I} '<:Ix E X, and so, as Kosko
(1992) asserts, fuzziness begins where classical bivalent set theory leaves off.

Entropy and Subsethood

It is useful to introduee two more eoneepts pertaining to fuzzy sets, entropy and
subsethood, before turning to issues of aeeessibility. Entropy measures the une er-
tainty or ambiguity of a system or message. The uneertainty in question need not
be probabilistie; it may be fuzzy in nature. In the eontext of fuzzy sets, entropy is a
measure of the fuzziness of a set, where crisp sets have an entropy measure of
zero, and where the fuzziest set has an entropy measure of unity. Kosko (1992)
answers the question, 'How fuzzy is a fuzzy setT with the following entropy
measure:

(6.12)

where M(.) is a measure of the eardinality or size of a set:

(6.13)

The entropy measure E(A) is given as the ratio ofthe eardinalities ofthe overlap
(interseetion) and underlap (union) ofthe set A with its complement AC. From the
preeeding discussion regarding the laws of non-contradietion and of the exeludible
middle, we know that M(AnA C) = 0 and M(AuAC) = I for erispy sets, and so
crispy sets have zero entropy: E(A) = Oll = O. In contrast, maximum fuzziness
oeeurs for sets with mA(x) = 0.5 '<:Ix E X, for in that ease E(A) = 0.5/0.5 = 1. Most
sets williie somewhere between these two extremes.
Subsethood, S(A, B) measures the extent or degree to whieh one set, A, is a sub-
set of another, B. Kosko (1992) operationalizes subsethood as:

S(A,B) = M(AnB) / M(A) (6.14)

96 E.J. Heikkila

Note that in fuzzy set theory, it is possible for a set A to be a subset (to some de-
gree) of another set B that is wholly eontained within it, for in that ease

M(AnB) = M(B) ~ 1 > S(A,B) = M(B) / M(A) > 0 (6.15)

6.3 Accessibility and Fuzzy Sets

Accessibility and Membership in Fuzzy Clubs

Club theory, in the tradition ofBuehanan (1965) and Tiebout (1956), examines the
eeonomie rationale by which individuals voluntarily form groups or clusters in
order to derive tangible or intangible benefits through mutual assoeiation. The
club theory literature, whieh is summarized weIl by Comes and Sandler (1986), is
relevant to the formation of social organizations as diverse as municipalities,
health maintenanee organizations, and eountry clubs. The club metaphor is ex-
tended very easily to issues of membership, where the strength or degree of an
individual's membership in, or association with, a club may vary aeeording to
eireumstanee. This notion lends itself very naturally to the formulation of mem-
bership injuzzy clubs:

mA(x) = degree (x E A) '\Ix E X (6.16)

where mA(x) measures the strength of association that any individual person or
plaee x has with some club A for any individual x belonging to some referential or
universal set X.
Accessibility is a kind of assoeiation, where the more aeeessible a person is to a
plaee (or, more generally, to anode) the stronger is the implied association. As
such, aeeessibility ean be modeled using the same fuzzy set theoretieal approach
deseribed above. Viewed from this perspeetive, aeeessibility is merely one mani-
festation of the more general notion of assoeiation. In a geographie sense, aeeessi-
bility or proximity is an essential measure of the strength or degree of an assoeia-
tion. In a transaetional sense, interaction is an alternative measure of assoeiation.
In a soeio-politieal sense, influence is yet another. Taken together, these ideas
suggest that traditional notions of spatial aeeessibility are misplaeed. Geographie
loeation within an urban area, for example, appears to be seeondary to eonsidera-
tions of 'fuzzy club membership' where those clubs may or may not be geo-
graphieally defined and where club membership need not be binary.
To develop this idea a bit further, we borrow again from Kosko (1992) to de-
velop a geometrie representation of fuzzy clubs. Consider the referenee set X =
{Xl, X2, .. , xn }. Its power set, denoted by 2x, eontains all erisp subsets of X. For
example, in the two-dimensional ease (n=2) whieh is depieted on the left-hand
 The Fuzzy Logie of Aeeessibility 97

side of Figure 6.3, 2 x = {0, {XI}, {X2}, X}. These elements of 2x (which are
themselves sets) constitute the vertices of an n-dimensional hypercube such as the
one in Figure 6.3. This is the fuzzy power set of X. Using this representation,
fuzzy sets can be depicted as points within a cube. 2

{X } ________________~ X
~2~

'~.I>~//
B • ../
.. C ..-

o
Figure 6.3. Fuzzy power sets derived from geographie space.

Now consider the stylized map of an urban area on the right-hand side ofFigure
6.3 in which two locations XI and X2 are situated with reference to three urban sub-
centers or nodes A, Band C; and where the distance from XI to A, for example, is
denoted by d AI . Membership ofxl in the fuzzy club denoted by A increases mono-
tonically with decreases in dA I, that is,

(6.17)

For reasons that will become apparent below, it is useful and intuitively reason-
able to impose the following boundary conditions on f(.):

f(O) = 1 (6.18)
lim x --+ '" f (d) = 0 (6.l9)

which (when taken in conjunction with the strict monotonicity in equation 6.17)
state that fuH membership occurs only when there is no distance separating a
member from the center, and that any finite distance yields a positive degree of
membership, however small. These conditions are satisfied by any function with
the familiar negative exponential form

2 We use the terms 'eube' and 'hypereube' interchangeably.

98 E.J. Heikkila

f(d) = exp (-ud) where u > 0 (6.20)

In Figure 6.3 the fuzzy set or fuzzy club A is represented as a point in the fuzzy
power set of X, where its location within the cube indicates the degree of member-
ship of each element of X in A. On the right-hand side of Figure 6.3, XI is located
much closer to A than is Xl. and so its degree of membership in the fuzzy club A is
higher. In contrast, the fuzzy club B is equally accessible from both Xl and X2, and
so it falls on the 45°-line, as does fuzzy club C, although the membership levels of
Xl and X2 in fuzzy club C are less than they are for B, reflecting the fact that C is
less accessible to them than is B.
Three other fuzzy sets are depicted on the left-hand side of Figure 6.3, corre-
sponding to AC, (AnN), and (AuN), whose coordinates in the fuzzy power set of
X are given by

AC = (1-mA(xI), I-mA(x2)) (6.21)

AnN = (min [mA(xI), 1-mA(xI)] , min [mA(x2), 1-mA(x2)]) (6.22)
AuN = (max [mA(xI), I-mA(xl)] , max [mA(x2), l-mA(x2)]) (6.23)

These four points (including the fuzzy set A) are situated symmetrically with
respect to the four vertiees that comprise the (non-fuzzy) power set of X. The fur-
ther these points are from the vertices, the fuzzier the set iso Maximum entropy
oeeurs at the midpoint, whieh happens to be B in this ease, where the four sets
converge so that B = BC= BnB c = BuB c .

Tbe Fuzzy Logic of Accessibility

Thus far we have established that the language of fuzzy sets as developed by
Zadeh (1965), Kosko (1992) and others aeeommodates rather effortlessly eoneepts
of aeeessibility in geographie or non-geographie eontexts. This is eneouraging, but
the real question is whether the analytieal tools of fuzzy logie ean add to our gen-
eral understanding of aceessibility. We begin this part of the inquiry by probing
more deeply the interpretation of the three fuzzy sets most closely assoeiated with
A, beginning with N. We established already that there is a one-to-one mapping
of fuzzy sets in urban spaee on the right-hand side of Figure 6.3 to points in the
fuzzy power set on the left-hand side of Figure 6.3. What about the inverse map-
ping? Speeifieally, is there a geographie loeation on the right-hand side of Figure
6.3 that eorresponds to the eomplement of the fuzzy club A, and if so, what is its
interpretation?
To answer this question, eonsider the inverse function f -1(.) whieh maps from
elub membership levels to distanee, f -I : m~ d. By taking the inverse of both
sides of equation 6.17 we have
 The Fuzzy Logic of Accessibility 99

(6.24)

Building from the definition of the eomplement AC , we may define the 'implieit
eomplementary distanee'

(6.25)

whieh denotes the distanee ofx l from the fuzzy eomplement set AC . From this we
ean infer that N will be loeated somewhere on the set of loeations on the right-
t
hand side of Figure 6.3 that jointly form a eircle of radius (dAI eentered on XI.
We denote this eircle by AI<, where

(6.26)

Likewise, N must also be loeated somewhere on another eireular set of loea-

tions A 2c eentered on X2 , and so we ean narrow our seareh to the interseetion of
these two hyperspheres. In the ease of n=2 the interseetion of two overlapping
hyperspheres is given by two points, as shown on the right-hand side of Figure
6.3, although at this juneture we must also allow for the possibility that the two
eircles in question do not overlap at all, or that they do so only tangentially. The
interpretation of N in this eontext is that of a loeation in the original geographie
spaee whose relationship to the referenee set X = {x" X2} is eomplementary to the
relationship that the urban node A has with this same referenee set. If membership
in the fuzzy club A is based on aeeessibility, then eaeh element ofthe referenee set
Xis as inaccessible to the loeation(s) defined by AC as they are accessible to A.
A similar teehnique ean be used to derive the reverse mapping for the fuzzy
overlap and underiap clubs (AnN) and (AuN), whieh in the erisp version ofthe
world eorrespond to the empty and universal sets, respeetively. It is interesting
that these logieal expressions exist in a geographie eontext, and so one might aetu-
ally live in the realm of contradiction or the excludible middle! These terms have
a niee intuitive interpretation in a geographie eontext, as ean be seen by eonsider-
ing the limiting ease of a erisp worid. In that ease, as we have seen, the overiap
(AnN) eorresponds to the null set, or mA(xI) = mA(x2) = O. Using the funetion f(.)
from equations 6.17 and 6.20, whieh maps distanees into membership levels, zero
membership eorresponds to infinite distanee, whieh implies that the excluded
members are literally banished from the map, and so we are left with the empty
set. Similarly, in the extreme erisp ease the underlap (AnN) eorresponds to the
universal set, or mA(xI) = mA(x2) = I, indieating that the locations ofboth XI and
X2 coincide exactiy with that of the urban center A, and so the entire referenee set
sits squarely 'downtown', or stated another way, the universal set is entirely sub-
sumed in A. The same kind of reasoning applies when we admit partial member-
ship in fuzzy clubs, but we are no longer constrained to these corner solutions of
extreme dispersion and extreme concentration in the urban spatial strueture. This
suggests that fuzzy logie is a useful analytieal tool for probing the intimate rela-
100 E.J. Heikkila

tionship between accessibility and entropy in the geographie formation of cities

and regions.
The preceding discussion used a concrete example to convey a general concept.
It is useful to pause, therefore, to consider how the specific example may be gen-
eralized. In Figure 6.3 the reference set X has dimensionality n=2, which is useful
for graphical exposition purposes. However, generalized measures of accessibility
typically make reference to a host of locations, so in practice the dimensionality of
X may become quite large. This poses no problem conceptually, as the fuzzy
power set in Figure 6.3 simply assumes added dimensionality concomitantly. It is
most likely, however, that in this case too many constraints will yield a null solu-
tion:

(6.27)

Thus, the existence and dimensionality of N in the original geographie space de-
pends critically on the dimensionality of the reference set X.
Another assumption from Figure 6.3 that can be relaxed is the explicitly geo-
graphical nature of the original space, with A, Band C representing urban nodes
or subcenters in that example, and with membership or accessibility represented as
a function of geographical distance. Although geographie accessibility is sub-
sumed very easily within the fuzzy club theoretical framework, more abstract no-
tions of association mayaiso be accommodated. For example, the fuzzy clubs A,
B and C in Figure 6.3 may be on-line chat rooms, political power centers or com-
munity.

6.4 Modeling the Impact of Information Technology on

Accessibility

Theoretical Approach

To model the impact of information technology on accessibility we first introduce

some additional terminology with reference to the fuzzy power set in Figure 6.4,
which differs from its cousin in Figure 6.3 insofar as it is based on n=3 rather than
n=2. The corners ofthis cube are labeled Xl ( = {xd) or X 23 ( = {{X2}, {X3}}) , for
example, to indicate which crisp subsets of X 'belong' to the vertex in question.
We refer to XI. X z and X 3 as strictiy partitioned sets while X lZ , X Z3 , and X 13 are
loosely partitioned sets. A set S belonging to the power set of X is strictly parti-
tioned if

Vi = I ... n (6.28)
 The Fuzzy Logic of Accessibility 101

where T is some other set also belonging to the power set of X. Loosely parti-
tioned sets drawn from the power set of X allow some overlap, but they are still
'partitioned' in the sense that there are some elements of X that are clearly ex-
cluded altogether, and there is another crisp sub set of X that forms the perfect
complement to the set in question. Considering for the moment the case where n is
large, we would say that the set S, whose coordinates in the fuzzy power set of X
are (1, 0, 0 ... 0, 0, I), is more strictly partitioned than T, with coordinates (0, 1,
1.. .1, 1, 0), although neither is strictiy partitioned. Likewise, we say that T is less
strictly partitioned than S. In the extreme case, as T becomes less and less parti-
tioned, it happens that we approach full convergence, corresponding to X itself. In
a social setting, a club that is more strictiy partitioned may cater to narrower inter-
est groups with high degrees of involvement. A religious sect or paramilitary or-
ganization that maintains rigid control over its members, demands a high degree
of commitment from them, and shuns 'outsiders' would be an extreme case of a
strictiy partitioned set. The set of people belonging to the Democratic Party, or
subscribers to the Los Angeles Times, which have clearly defined memberships but
that draw from a large cross-section of the population, are less strictly partitioned.
Now consider the diagonal connecting 0 and X in Figure 6.4. Its midpoint M is
also the midpoint of the fuzzy power set of X and, as discussed earlier, it corre-
sponds to the point of maximum entropy of the system. Conversely, the endpoints
ofthis diagonal, 0 and X, correspond to zero entropy. In the case ofX there is full
convergence and maximum participation. All elements are fully engaged at X. In
the case of 0 there is complete divergence and maximum withdrawal, but there is
no ambiguity or entropy.

X
,, X 13

X 23 X3
,,M
• ,,
A ~

X 12
,, /
XI

/
X2
0
Figure 6.4. Fuzzy power set for n = 3.

To recapitulate, there are three dichotomies that are of interest here. One is the
participation-withdrawal dichotomy, which is measured as distance in any direc-
ti on from 0. Another is the entropy-order dichotomy, which is measured as dis-
102 E.J. Heikkila

tance in any direction from the midpoint M. The third dichotomy is the strictness-
looseness of partitioning, which can be measured as the angle away from the cen-
tral diagonal. Each of these dichotomies is likely to be affected by our collective
movement into the information age. Specifically, as we move from an era of geo-
graphic space to one of cyberspace, a number of changes are likely occurring, in-
cluding:

• movement away from 0 in response to increased levels of overall participa-

ti on as technology provides more avenues for access to a wider range of
fuzzy clubs;

• movement towards more loosely coupled partitions for the same reasons;
and

• proliferation of more specialized clubs as like-minded individuals are able

to congregate and find each other more easily.
These trends may often pull in opposing directions, thus making the overall im-
pact on our three fundamental dichotomies unclear. For example, improved access
may be expected to increase participation levels overall, but participation in some
clubs may decline as competing opportunities for their members arise elsewhere.
Likewise, the movement towards more loosely partitioned clubs may be offset by
the proliferation of more strictly partitioned ones. The analytical framework is a
theoretical one, but the question as to which of these trends is dominant must be
answered ultimately by empirical means.

Empirical Approach

To implement this approach empirically requires data for some universal reference
set X and the patterns of association each element Xi has with a set of identifiable
clubs; A, B, C .... Z. Obvious candidates for study include (1) daily trip logs of
individuals in an urban area and destination travel zones, (2) telephone records, or
(3) Web browsing logs of a sampie of users. The latter example is used in this
discussion, where destination URLs 3 are the fuzzy clubs to which browsers be-
long, and where frequency and/or duration of visits measures strength of member-
ship. Another advantage of this example is that the World Wide Web is undergo-
ing very fast-paced change, and so the nature of its evolution for the three
fundamental dichotomies is unfolding rapidly and requires shorter time frames. It
mayaiso offer insights for extending Bolton's (1997) notion of places as net-
works.
As before, X represents the universal reference set, in this case a sampIe of n
Web users X = {Xl. X2, ... xn }, where n is large and where the survey records

3 URL refers to the universal record locator that serves as a website's identifier and address
on the World Wide Web.
 The Fuzzy Logic of Accessibility 103

cover two distinct periods, t=O ('before') and t=l ('after'). Any website that has
been visited at least once by any user Xi in either period is a fuzzy club. The fuzzy
power set defined by this data sampie is an n-dimensional hypercube and each
website is a fuzzy club located within this hypercube. For this example we define
the membership value mA(xi) for either period as the total time spent in that period
by user Xi at fuzzy club A 4, where all such times are normalized so that the maxi-
mum membership value over both periods is unity. The result is a hypercube simi-
lar to the one depicted in Figure 6.4, but in n dimensions, and with numerous
fuzzy clubs located throughout. The objective of this empirical approach is to de-
termine how the system in question has changed with respect to the three funda-
mental dichotomies: (1) participation-withdrawal, (2) entropy-order, and (3)
looseness-strictness of partitioning. In the context of this example it is reasonable
to ascribe any such changes to the increasing availability of and advances in in-
formation technology, and so this provides a relatively 'pure' case study of how
information technology impacts accessibility.
As noted above, the level of participation in a fuzzy club is measured by the
distance of the club from 0, where the maximum distance is -vn, based on a
Euclidean metric. More specifically, we have

(6.29)

aggregating again over W, the set of all websites, yields an overall level of partici-
pation for period t, Pb and the difference in the level of participation between the
two study periods is given by

(6.30)

As for entropy, we may vary the notation from equation 12 slightly to conform to
current usage:

EAt = M(AnN) / M(AuAC) for t = 0,1 (6.31 )

and then our measure of change in entropy between the two study periods for the
entire system is

(6.32)

And finally, the degree of partitioning represented by any set A is given by the
angle e At formed between the central diagonal and the vector defined by A within

4 In principle it should be easy to experiment with alternative specifications ofthe member-

ship function that incorporate number of visits as weil as time spent.
104 E.J. Heikkila

the fuzzy power set ofX in period t. Let AD denote the projection ofthe vector A
onto the central diagonal. Then the degree of partitioning is given by
BAt = COS -1 [M(AD) / M(A)] / (1[/4) for t = 0,1 (6.33)

where the expression has been normalized by (1[/4) so that the maximum degree of
partitioning is one. Then, as with the preceding two cases, we have

(6.34)

Equations 6.30, 6.32 and 6.34 measure the change in participation, entropy and
degree of partitioning, respectively, of the system over the two time periods. As
such, they are useful and practical means of assessing the impact of information
technology on accessibility within a given system. More generally, we can think
about the process by which one fuzzy state is mapped into another. Kosko (1992)
refers to such mappings (from one fuzzy power set to another) as fuzzy systems,
and argues persuasively that neural network techniques, which he terms fuzzy
associative memories (FAM), are especially weil suited to this task. Figure 6.5
illustrates the basic concept. Using fuzzy logic in this manner, neural networks can
be trained computationally to reason with sets rather than with propositions re-
garding questions of accessibility. This idea is not pursued further in this paper,
but it does suggest an intriguing avenue for developing predictive models about
the manner in which accessibility systems unfold.

o
t=O - - - - - - . . t=l
Figure 6.5. Fuzzy associate memories (F AM).
 The Fuzzy Logic of Accessibility 105

6.5 Fuzzy Conclusions

Fuzzy set theory and fuzzy logic is still relatively new and it is certainly not with-
out its critics, so me of whom argue that the introduction of multivalued member-
ship functions to set theory adds little or nothing that could not be accomplished
through other means. This paper does not seek to resolve that ongoing debate.
However, the evidence presented here suggests quite strongly that the logic of
fuzzy sets has much to offer geographers in their quest to model accessibility in a
geographie and non-geographie context. The following conclusions appear to ap-
ply:
• The language of fuzzy sets can be adapted almost effortlessly to encompass
a generalized notion of accessibility, and has considerable potential for in-
tegrating geographie, social, virtual, and other elements of accessibility or
association;

• This approach also provides a natural extension to the club theory literature
that grew from the Tiebout model, where municipalities or other nodes are
modeled as 'fuzzy clubs';

• The fuzzy logical operators of complementarity, intersection, union, sub-

sethood and entropy also have interesting and plausible interpretations in
the context of accessibility, and so we may expect that as fuzzy logic con-
tinues to evolve, so too will the insights it offers to scholars concemed with
issues of accessibility;

• Modeling fuzzy clubs as points in a cube leads us to a representation of

three fundamental dichotomies in such systems: (1) participation-
withdrawal, (2) entropy-order, and (3) looseness-strictness of partitioning;
and

• We have demonstrated the feasibility in principle of implementing this ap-

proach to analyze empirically the impact of emerging technologies on a va-
riety of systems in which accessibility issues are central.

Acknowledgements

This paper was written in response to the eallfor Participation in the Varenius initiative on
Measuring and Representing Accessibility in the Information Age. I am grateful to the or-
ganizers far prompting this inquiry, to my colleague Niraj Verma for helpful discussions
generally, and to Qisheng Pan far research assistance. I am solely responsible for the pa-
per' s contents.
106 E.J. Heikkila

References
Bolton, R. 1997. 'Place' as 'network': Applications of network theory to local communi-
ties. Paper for Volume in Honor of T.R. Lakshmanan; Department of Economics, Wil-
liams College, Williamstown MA 01267; December.
Buchanan, J.M. 1965. An economic theory ofclubs. Economica. 32:1-14.
Comes, R., and Sandler, T. 1986. The Theory 0/ Externalities, Public Goods, and Club
Goods. Cambridge UK: Cambridge University Press.
Heikkila, EJ. 1996. Are municipalities Tieboutian clubs? Regional Science and Urban
Economics 26:203-26.
Kosko, B. 1992. Neural Networks and Fuzzy Systems: A Dynamical Systems Approach to
Machine Intelligence. Englewood Cliffs NJ: Prentice Hall.
Rescher, N. 1969. Many-valued Logic, New York: McGraw-Hill.
Tiebout, C. 1956. A pure theory of local expenditures. Journal 0/ Political Economy
64:416-24.
Zadeh, L.A. 1965. Fuzzy sets. Information and ControI8:338-53.
7 The E-merging Geography
of the Information Society:
From Accessibility to Adaptability

Daniel Z. Sui

Department ofGeography, Texas A&M University, College Station TX 77843, USA.

Email: D-sui@tamu.edu

7.1 Introduction

Issues related to the reconceptualization of access and accessibility in the informa-

tion age have received significant attention from both policy makers and academic
researchers in recent years (Couclelis 1996, Handy and Niemeier 1997, Kwan
1999, Litan and Niskanen 1998, Leebaert 1998, Miller 1999). This growing inter-
est is attributed partly to the central importance of access and accessibility in geo-
graphie theories and models, and is caused partly by the extraordinary innovations
in communication and transportation technologies in the late 20 th century (Hodge
1997, Hanson 1998). From recent literature, one concludes that there is little con-
sensus on how to define (much less how to measure) access and accessibility in
the information age. Most authors do seem to agree that the traditional conceptu-
alizations of access and accessibility are incapable of capturing the new reality and
that we need to redefine and reconceptualize accessibility in light of the new
Internet-led revolution in telecommunications (See Chapter 16 by Hanson and
Chapter 17 by Occelli). However, few have asked the fundamental questions: why
are we so obsessed with the access and accessibility issues, and what exactly are
their roles in our social and economic lives? If the dazzling development in tele-
communications has rendered the definition of access and accessibility so elusive
that they dery conventional measurements, what kind of alternative questions can
we ask to better understand the E-merging geography of the information society?
This chapter has two objectives. First, I present a philosophical critique on cur-
rent research on access and accessibility. Second, I aim to examine the feasibility
and utility of an adaptive perspective in studying the geography in the information
age. The chapter discusses why accessibility becomes less critical in the informa-
tion age and describes the need to focus more on adaptability. It traces the root
metaphors embedded in accessibility and adaptability and provides an explanation
of their syntax, semanties, and pragmatics. It also presents preliminary empirical
results on the emerging geography of information society, and identifies future
research needs.
108 D. Z. Sui

7.2 Drawn to the Web: Accessibility or Adaptability?

Although it is generally agreed that accessibility is only a necessary condition for

economic development or for improvement in the quality of life, accessibility is
often treated as an end in itself. The literature is replete with mono-causal asser-
tions that tend to regard accessibility as a panacea for all our social and economic
problems. Without considering many other social, economic, and even cultural
factors, policies designed solely to improve access and accessibility can be mis-
leading and ineffective in accomplishing social goals. Hägerstrand (1975) ob-
served that it is not as important to measure what people do as it is to measure
what they are free to do. By the same token, I believe it is not as important to
measure what people have access to as to measure the access of what people need
(whether facilities, services, or information) at the right time and the right place.
The relentless pursuit to improve accessibility in transportation in most major U.S.
cities seems to be locked in a vicious cycle: the wider the roads become, the more
crowded they seem to be; and, thus, making many places less accessible. The pre-
requisite to a mature geography oftelecommunications, according to Abler (1991,
46) is

the need to abandon the assumption that communications technology cause cultural,
economic, political and socia! behavior and events and that behavior and events are
consequences of the absence, presence or use of telecommunications hardware. Nei-
ther historical evidence, current events, nor prospects for the future support that as-
sumption.

Abler's insight is particularly pertinent to our current discussions on access and

accessibility. Indeed, it would be disastrous if we continue to let accessibility dic-
tate our research and policy agenda in the information age. Many studies have
indicated that having access to unlimited amounts of information is not necessarily
beneficial to an individual or an organization. In fact, information overload (hav-
ing access to too much information) may be equally or more harmful than having
too little information. Davenport (1997) reports that information overflow is one
of the main reasons for institutional dysfunction. The reason for the dysfunction is
captured in Simon's law - the wealth of information creates a poverty of attention
(Simon 1997). Economists even hotly debated the existence of the so-called pro-
ductivity paradox, because many empirical studies show a decrease of productiv-
ity with increasing access to information technology (Brynjolfsson and Yang
1996). At the individual behavior level, the irony is even more disturbing. Several
recent national studies indicate that the more time people spend on-line, the more
likely they tend to be depressed and, thus, less productive in life (Schindler 1998).
As a result, the University of Texas at Austin offers Internet addiction counseling
services to students who are so addicted to surfing the Web that their normal
course work is interrupted (Schindler 1998).
Perhaps, Brin (1990) best depicts the situation of information overload in his
science fiction Earth, when everybody is wired to everybody else and to every
 From Accessibility to Adaptability 109

conceivable information source via the global communication network. As a re-

sult, people are inundated with unwanted, incorrect, and irrelevant information.
Consequently, most of them are confused, hallucinated, and depressed. The prob-
lem people in this kind of society have to deal with is not how to gain access to
information, but precisely the opposite: how to filter out the unwanted information
and retain only valuable information. In Brin's fictional world, the wealthy and
powerful are differentiated from the poor and powerless by their ability to pur-
chase artificially intelligent agent software capable of separating the wheat from
the chaff. Although Brin's world has not yet arrived, Bednarz (1998) observes t!Iat
the problem has. Mokyr (1997, 138) notes that

of course we have access now to a much larger supply of information, but here we
must always keep in mind that the human mind can process at most 50 bytes per sec-
ond - and most of us probably do not do nearly as weil. Few if any persons in our age,
I venture, sufTer from a lack of information - all have stacks of unread papers, unan-
swered e-mail messages, endlessly unopened Internet web pages, memos that are still
in the their brown campus envelopes, videotapes of Public TV programs which we
promise ourselves to watch 'when there is time.' The high priority is no longer in get-
ting the information to us but in selecting and ranking, sorting the duplicative and false
and the irrelevant from the information that we need. Like DNA, most of the informa-
tion is junk.

According to arecent study in memetics, the most accessible information in our

society is neither the best nor the most accurate (Lynch 1999). Instead, it is infor-
mation that can replicate itself that is spread rapidly in various media. Unless we
make judicious and persistent efforts to filter unnecessary information, the bene-
fits gained from the telecommunication revolution can easily be canceled by the
problems caused by information overload.
Furthermore, having access to the right information (or facilities, services, etc.)
at the right time and the place is not as important as what people actually do with
the information. One extreme example is that almost everybody has access to mud
and clay and yet only a handful of artists can use this to make an artistic product.
Our current obsession with accessibility issues might blind us to the real issue in
the information society. The real issue we need to tackle is, in my opinion,
adaptability: to study how people or organizations actually creatively use accessi-
ble information to their best advantage and to the benefit of society and the envi-
ronment. To adapt in the information age means to leam and to translate what one
leams into productive actions more quickly and effectively. Obviously, to study
adaptability is much more complicated than measuring accessibility.
Undoubtedly, there are still lots of research and policy issues to be addressed to
improve access and accessibility at the global, regional, and local levels. Accessi-
bility issues are especially acute during the initial stage of a technological innova-
tion. But the importance of accessibility declines as the technology evolves. His-
tory has shown that as a technological innovation matures, access to it will
increasingly depend on one's ability to pay and on an equitable legal framework to
guarantee such access (see Chapter 18 by Onsrud). Thus, the access or accessibil-
110 D. Z. Sui

ity issue ultimately always becomes a socio-economic or political issue in dis-

guise. In retrospect, the time required for universal access to a new technological
innovation has shortened dramatically during the last 150 years. Electricity was
first harnessed in 1831, yet it took 50 years to build the first power station in 1882
(Hughes 1983). It took another 50 years before electricity powered 80 percent of
factories and households across the United States. Radio was in existence for 40
years before 50 million people tuned in. TV took l3 years to reach that bench-
mark. Sixteen years after the first PC kit came out, 50 million people were using
one (Margherio 1997). Once it was opened to the general public, the Internet
crossed that line in less than four years. Right now we have about 172 million
Internet users worldwide (NUA 1998). Two recent national studies (Clemente
1998, Rogers 1998) show that the Internet has been increasingly accessed by
women (40% of all users), the less affluent (the average annual household income
with Internet access dropped below $41,000), and the less educated (about 50 %
of the Internet users do not have college education). Based on the current pace of
Internet growth, it is estimated that global Internet users will probably reach 1
billion by the year 2005 (Margherio 1997). So it is not unreasonable to assume
that before long, the issue of accessibility may still exist but that it will be pretty
trivial in the developed world, especially in the United States. Who would now
conduct research on the accessibility of electricity or telephone or TV (although
the issue might be interesting and legitimate during the initial stages of these tech-
nological innovations)?
With this historieal background in mind, I believe that it will be more fruitful to
shift our focus from accessibility to adaptability. By focusing on adaptability, we
can better comprehend actual processes at the individual, organiza-
tional/institutional, and social levels, and appreciate more fully the E-merging
geographical patterns that characterize the information age. Accessibility and
adaptability entail different metaphors, but also different syntax, semantics, and
pragmaties.

7.3 Understanding the Web: Mechanical (accessibility)

versus Biological (adaptability) Metaphors

Human thinking and cognitive abilities are inherently metaphorical, and geogra-
phers have paid increasing attention to the role of metaphors in geographie theo-
ries and models (Sui 2000). Generally speaking, most models in social sciences
are developed according to either a physical/mechanistic metaphor or a biologi-
cal/organic metaphor. The root metaphor behind the various measures of accessi-
bility is a mechanistic one, and the concept of adaptability is motivated by a bio-
logical metaphor. To shift the focus of research from accessibility to adaptability
necessitates not only a change of metaphors but also different policy prescriptions
about the geography of information societies.
 From Accessibility to Adaptability 111

The mechanistic metaphor embedded in various measurements of accessibility

has a built-in deterministic and ahistorical ontology. The world is conceptualized
more or less like a gigantic machine, composed of parts (bounded regions) and
geography is about the interaction of those parts. Accessibility measures the
reachability of various parts by people via certain kinds of impedance. All aspects
of human life are determined and represented by the calculus of variation, and
human agents have no choice but to behave in accordance with physicallaws such
as the laws of least effort. Such a worldview as ahistorical: reality is theorized in
logical time, not historical time. Motion is completely reversible and gives rise to
no qualitative changes (Barnes 1997).
The epistemology behind a mechanistic metaphor is based upon the Cartesian
separation of object and subject and is, thus, inherentiy reductionistic. Social phys-
ics according, to the Newtonian mechanistic metaphor, always reduces the com-
plexity of the real world to elemental components to facilitate analytical treatment.
Implicit in the various accessibility measurements, the centrality of rational indi-
viduals is assumed and human irrationalities are not considered. Accessibility is
operationalized predominantiy from the perspective of supply-side economics
although a few researchers have devised new measurements to take into account
demand-side factors as weil (Shen 1998). The mechanistic metaphor also imposes
a strong sense of teleology to the system we model. The purpose of the system is
to optimize or maximize over everybody's collective objective function. In fact,
the meaning of life has been reduced to maximize certain utility functions accord-
ing to the mechanistic worldview. Despite its analytical elegance and contribu-
tions to the development of neoclassical economic theories, more and more re-
searchers realize that measurements and models developed according to a
Newtonian mechanistic metaphor only present a very partial, limited view of the
reality. In most cases, they've generated more heat than light in our quest to under-
stand the world. Conclusions reflect more the internal logic of the mechanistic
metaphor than that of the phenomenon to be modeled (Mirowski 1989, 1994).
The recent round of evolutionary thinking in general and the recent development
of evolutionary economics in particular (Hodgson 1993; England 1994; Nelson
1995) inspired the idea of adaptability. The root metaphor of adaptability is a bio-
logical one. Its ontology rejects the Laplacian dream of full mathematical determi-
nacy. Instead, the world is assumed to be a result of the interplay between chance
and necessity. Simultaneous randomness and determinacy accentuate historical
process and irreversible change. Reality is not only path-dependent but also non-
linear in its dynamics - small changes can provoke wider reverberations through-
out the entire system. Its epistemology denies the understanding of the whole by
analyzing its parts. The world is conceptualized as composed of an entangled,
complicated web, and geography is about the evolution (the dynamics) ofthe web
as manifested by the interaction among each strand in the web. The emergent be-
havior and spontaneous growth (order out of chaos) should be treated as the norm.
The adaptability perspective assumes no teleology ~ the wider system is not nec-
essarily improving or pursuing some ultimate goal of perfectibility. The best one
can expect is a temporary sub-optimal result of a constantiy evolving, unpredict-
able process.
112 D. Z. Sui

Table 7.1. Accessibility versus. adaptability: syntax, semanties, and pragmatics

Versions Accessibility Adaptability
Measurements are based upon analo- Measurements are based on
gies from Newtonian physics and chaotic and self-organizing
Syntax Keyensian economics; deterministic principles; in accordance with
gravity-type ofmodels analogies from biology; frac-
tals, cellular automata; neural
computing, and genetic algo-
rithms
Realities are conceptualized as ma- Realities are conceptualized as
chines composed of simple systems; organisms composed of com-
Semantics predefined spatial boundaries; aggre- plex systems; derived spatial
gate; static; emphasis on employrnent, units and grid cells; highly dis-
travel, and land use aggregate; dynamic; emphasis
on individuals and institutions
Improvement of infrastructure (hard- Improvement of learning and
ware and software); short-term, vi- cognitive capabilities (human-
Pragmatics cious cycle; seek to maximize; em- ware); long-term, virtuous cy-
phasis on behavior and maximum cle; seek adaptlsatisfy; empha-
economic efficiency. sis on cognitive capabilities and
sustainable development.

To further differentiate accessibility and adaptability, we need to take a elose

look at their syntax, semantics, and pragmatics (Table 7.1). I want to emphasize
their different pragmatics, which has profound policy and practical implications.
Efforts on accessibility tend to emphasize the improvement of infrastructure
(hardware and software) with the goal of maximizing economic efficiency, with
less concern for social equity and environmental sustainability. In contrast, the
adaptability perspective emphasizes the cognitive dimensions (humanware) of
individuals, organizations, and regions. To adapt in an uncertain, unpredictable,
and constantly changing world, agents must leam and adjust their tactics and
strategies accordingly. Different leaming schemes, such as leaming by doing (Ar-
row 1962), leaming by trying (Fleck 1993), and leaming by building alliances
(Mody 1993) are proposed as adaptive strategies in the information age. The
adaptability perspective also mandates abandonment of the maximization of eco-
nomic efficiency and the improvement of infrastructure as driving motivations for
policy initiatives. Instead, the adaptive paradigm seeks to balance economic effi-
ciency, social equity, and environmental sustainability so that society and envi-
ronment can co-evolve in harmony and can avoid further tragedies for the com-
mons (Sui 1998, see Couelelis in Chapter 20).
Just like social physics, various versions of social biology, especially social
Darwinism, have been discredited and hotly contested. However, adaptability and
other biological (or physical) principles can only be used in a strictly metaphorical
sense. All metaphors are both liberating and constraining. I distance myself from
 From Accessibility to Adaptability 113

the hardcore socio-biological thinking of Wilson's (1975) or Dawkins' (1976) de-

piction of society in red in tooth and claw. My line of reasoning falls squarely
within the mainstream of evolutionary economics, which draws on the latest de-
velopment of complexity theory and new computing theories. The evolutionary
metaphor is invoked to stimulate us to ask new questions but not to seek answers.
We must search our answers through meticulous study of the real world.

7.4 Caught in the Web: The Death ofDistance or the Birth

ofa New Geography?

Theoretical speculations on the impacts ofthe Internet-led telematic revolution are

rampant in the literature. Arguments range from the borderless world and the end
of nation states (Ohmae 1990, 1995), space-time compression and distanciation
(Harvey 1996), and the death of distance (Cairncross 1997), to the anywhere-
anytime-anything paradigm for interpreting access to various social, economic,
and cultural aspects of society (Mitchell 1995). And yet, rarely are these assertions
supported by convincing empirical evidence because of the lack of relevant data
and because of the enormous conceptual complexities of measuring access and
accessibility in the information age. By shifting our perspective from accessibility
to adaptability, I want to use a combination of several different data sources to
shed light on the emerging geographie patterns in the new information age and to
test the usefulness ofthe adaptability perspective in explaining these patterns. l

1 Unless noted otherwise, data used in this paper come primarily from the following
sources: (I). Telegeography 1999: Global Telecommunication Trafiic Statistics and
Commentary. Gregory Staple (ed.). Washington DC: Telegeography, Inc. (see
http://www.telegeography.com, (2). Network Wizards (www.nw.com), RIPE, Inc.
(www.ripe.net), Web21 (www.web21.com), (3). Clemente, P.c. 1998. State ofthe Net:
The new frontier. New York: McGraw-Hill. Data used in this book are collected by
FIND/SVP 1997 American Internet User Survey (www.cyberdialogue.com. (4). Matrix
Information and Directory Services (MIDS), Inc. (www.mids.org, (5) CyberAtlas, Inc.
(www.cyberatlas.com). and (6) U.S. Department of Commerce, National Telecommuni-
cations and Information Administration (NTIA) 1997. Falling Through the Net /1: New
Data on the Digital Divide (www.ntia.doc.gov/ntiahome/net2/falling.html).
114 D.Z.Sui

Table 7.2. The most wired countries in the world: Top 15 nations by Internet population by
the end of 1998
Nation Internet Users (millions)
United States 76.5
Japan 9.75
United Kingdom 8.10
Germany 7.l4
Canada 6.49
Australia 4.36
France 2.79
Sweden 2.58
Italy 2.14
Spain 1.98
Netherlands 1.96
Taiwan 1.65
China 1.58
Finland 1.57
Norway l.34
Top 15 nations 129.9
Europe 36.02
Worldwide 147.8
Source: CyberAtlas, Inc.

]Urber of Internet Hosts

0-54872
54873-186414
186415 - 431809
431810 - 792351
792352 - 1687534

Figure 7.1. Location ofInternet hosts by county, 1997 (Data source: TeleGeography, Inc.)
 From Accessibility to Adaptability 115

Despite the difficulties of collecting data on the new information infrastructure

and their usage, several federal agencies and private companies have made some
initial efforts to collect data to mirror spatial and temporal growth of the Internet.
Although inconsistencies exist, these data sources do complement each other in
many respects. By synthesizing different data sources currently available, we can
gain a glimpse of the E-merging geography of the information society at the
global, regional, and even locallevels.

Table 7.3. The changing Internet user profile (1994-1997)

Demographics All U.S. Internet Internet Internet Internet
Adults Users Users Users Users
1997 1994 1995 1996 1997
Total Adults (milIions) 3.5 8.4 22.5 36.3
Age (Percentages)
18-29 22 42 38 34 30
30-49 42 45 48 51 54
50& Up 36 13 14 15 16
Average Age (Y ears) 44 35 36 37 38
Gender (Percentages)
Male 48 78 72 66 61
Female 52 22 28 34 39
Household Income ($)
Average Income 44,900 66,300 61,500 56,700 51,900
Median Income 34,000 64,000 57,500 51,000 44,200
Education (Percentages)
College Graduate 21 51 48 45 42
Not College Graduate 79 49 52 55 58
Household Composition
Married 57 66 66 67 68
Single 23 29 26 23 21
Di vorced/Separated 20 5 8 10 11
Children Present 42 30 31 37 38
Occupation
Knowledge Work 27 47 48 47 45
Other Employed 36 30 29 31 35
Student 12 17 15 12 10
Not Employed 25 6 8 10 10
Source: FIND/SVP, cited in Clemente (1998)
116 D. Z. Sui

According to the Computer Industry Almanac, there were more than 147 million
world Internet users at the end of 1998, up from 61 million at the end of 1996.
However, the world Internet population is distributed unevenly. The top 15 na-
tions account for almost 90 percent of the world Internet users, with the Uni ted
States alone accounting 52 percent (Table 7.2). The geographical distribution of
the world's Internet population is consistent with the locational patterns of the
Internet infrastructure (Figure7.1). Internet domains are located predominantly in
the United States (58.1 %) and Europe (24.3%). Both Asia and Latin America ac-
count less than 10 percent of the world's Internet domains. Africa is the least
wired continent, accounting for less than 0.5 percent of world's Internet domains
(Figure 7.2). America's dominance is reflected also in the distribution of the
world's 100 most visited Web sites, among which 94 are U.S. Web sites (Figure
7.2). While the rest of the world claims only 6 percent of these 100 most visited
sites, California alone accounts 40 percent and New York 16 percent.

Internet Holt s by Continents Distribution ofthe 100

(1997) Most P opular Websites
(1997)

,
Non-U .S.
6% Oceania Africa
3.1% 0.5%

, ....

••••
Californla
40%

... ~ u.s.
58 .1%

Washington
.
-. .
- ..-;

4%

Figure 7.2. Internet hosts by eontinents and distribution of the 1,000 most popular Web
sites in 1997 (Data souree: TeleGeography, Ine.)

According to a survey conducted by INECO, by the end of December 1998,

approximately 108 million adults - 55 percent of the U.S. adult population had
accessed the Internet at least once in the previous 30 days. Several national sur-
veys have also confirmed that for the first time there are more people (36 million)
accessing the Net from horne than from work (26 million). Approximately 24 mil-
lion users have access to the Internet from schools, libraries, or community cen-
ters. The average age of Internet users increased by 3 years as more senior citizens
 From Accessibility to Adaptability 117

are moving on-line (Table 7.3). Women, the less educated, the less affluent, and
blue-collar workers are increasingly accessing the Internet (Table 7.3). It is esti-
mated that by 2003, Internet users in the United States will reach 207 million. On
average in 1998, Internet users spent 8.2 hours per week on the Net (Table 7.4),
with the majority logging on in the evenings daily between 6 p.m. and 10 p.m.
Since, the Internet will impact significantly on the temporal rhythms of social life,
we will need to pay more attention to 'the urbanization oftime' (Janelle 1993, see
Chapter 9 by Harvey and Macnab).

Table 7.4. Online trends among Internet user households

Internet Usage Percent of
Characteristics Internet User Households
Access Method:
Internet Service Provider (lSP) 60
Commercial Online Service 48
America Online 38
Microsoft Network 12
CompuServe 7
Access Speed:
14.4kbs or slower 25
28.8-36.6kbs 51
Other 10
Average HourslWeek Use Internet from Home:
Under 5 Hours 45
5-9 Hours 24
10 or more Hours 29
Average Number ofHours 8.2 hours
Average Session Length:
< 15 Minutes 2
15-44 Minutes 20
45-74 Minutes 40
75-119 Minutes 8
2 Hours or more 30
Average Number ofMinutes 90 rninutes
Primary Use by Time of Day:
Before 8 a.m: 3
8 a.rn.-Noon 13
Noon-6 p.rn. 14
6 p.rn.-lO p.m. 41
After 10 p.rn. 12
Varies too rnuch to say 16
Source: FIND/SVP, cited in Clemente (1998).
118 D. Z. Sui

% Hoosehold On!lIle
c:::::::::J 0.1 - 0.11
c::::J 0.11 - O. 12
0.12 - 0.16
_ 0.16 -0.17
_ 0 .17 -0.19
o

Figure 7.3. Location ofInternet households in the United States. 1997 (Data source: Cy-
berAtlas, Inc.)

Household Computer 0" nership in the .s.

1997

Computer Ownershlp
CJ 20.6 - 26 .2
c=J 26.2 -33
33 - 38 .2
_ 38.2 -44 .4
o 44.4 - 62 .6

Figure 7.4. Household computer ownership in the United States, 1997. (Data source: Cy-
berAtlas,Inc.)
 From Accessibility to Adaptability 119

At the household level, about 20 percent of U.S. households had 'access to the
Internet by the end of 1997. But it is estimated that this Internet penetration will
reach 70 percent by 2003. With the dramatic drop ofprices ofpersonal computers,
40 percent ofU.S. households own PCs. However, the geographical distribution of
the Internet households and PC ownership in the United States is uneven (Figures.
7.3 and 7.4), with strong concentrations in states where high-tech industry and
R&D activities are located, such as California, Massachusetts, Washington, and
Colorado. Many rural southern states, such as Mississippi, Arkansas, Alabama,
and Kentucky, lag. The disparity in information infrastructure is reflected clearly
in the distribution ofInternet hosts at the state level (Figure 7.5).

Aroosas
Alabama
West VIrginia
South Carolina
Louisiana
KenbJcky
MississipPI
Kansas
Tennessee
Nevada
Montana
Oklahoma
Indiana
S outh Dakota
Florida
N orth Carolina
Georgia
New Jersey
IllinOIS
WYOffi1l1g
OhlO
Hawaii
Alaska
Delaware
Arizona
Texas
Connecttcut
lewa
Missouri
Vermont
Idaho
New Hampshire
Pennsyrvania
Rhode Island
New York
Washington
Wlsconsm
Maine
N orth Dakota
Oregon
Michigan
NebraSka
Maryland
Colorado
Minnesota
Mass achusetts
Califomia
Virt~~
D.G
New Mexico
o
o Ln
o o

Figure 7.5. Distribution ofU.S. Internet hosts per 1,000 people by state, 1997
120 D. Z. Sui

Table 7.5. America's most wired cities: Top U.S. cities

ranked by percent of population online
Metropolitan Statistical Area Percent Online
San Francisco Bay Area CA 72
Miami FL 67
Houston TX 65
SeattlelTacoma WA 65
Washington DC 64
San Diego CA 64
Cleveland/Akron OH 62
AtlantaGA 61
Dallas TX 60
Philadelphia PA 60
Sacramento CA 59
Los Ange1es CA 59
Chicago IL 58
NewYorkNY 58
PhoenixAZ 57
Boston MA 57
Denver CO 55
U.S. as a nation 55
Detroit MI 52
Minneapolis/St. Paul MN 52
Pittsburgh PA 49
Source: CyberAtlas, Inc.

Table 7.5 shows America's most wired cities. Not surprisingly, 72 percent of
adults in the San Francisco Bay area access the Internet regularly, making it the
most wired community in the nation. This relates obviously to the nearby presence
of Silicon Valley and its concentrations of high-tech companies and highly skilled
people. Other most wired cities in the United States tend to be the traditional eco-
nomic, financial, and political centers, or the new booming Sunbelt cities, where
new corporate headquarters tend to be located or relocated. Figure 7.6 shows the
distribution of Internet domains at the zip code level in Texas. There exist, obvi-
ously, heavy concentrations in the four largest Texas cities - Houston, Dal-
laslForth Worth, Austin, and San Antonio. Several zip code areas in Austin claim
the heaviest concentrations of the Internet domains. This map also shows the
growing dispers al to suburban areas of these four big cities, and even to small
towns and less populated areas in rural Texas.
 From Accessibility to Adaptability 121

Table 7.6. Possible methods and techniques to handle surprises in modeling

Surprise-generating Mechanisms MethodsITechniques
Instability CatastrophelBifurcation Theory
Unpredictability Non-linear Dynamics
Irreducibility Holistic Approach, Q-analysis
Uncomputablity Neural computing/Genetic Algorithms
Emergence: Self-organizing, Cellular Automata

Di stri buti on of

...,...-, .
Interne t Domai ns
in Texas, 1998
Each dot r ~pr e$ents t he
centrol d of a ZI peode area
.· M"'

fhat has at leqst one

• 0:.: ••
. .......
: :.. : . . : .
nternet aomaln.

o
,
l00Mlles
'
• • •• ••
_-----_...J •• •
• ••
· ..d.
••

Figure 7.6. Distribution ofIntemet domains in Texas, 1998 (Data source: MIDS, Inc.)

Although the results are far from conclusive, preliminary findings do provide
hints to the E-merging geography of the information society. Contrary to the sim-
plistic, utopian expectations that telecommunications have sentenced distance to
death and render geography meaningless, the E-merging geography of the infor-
mation age is producing new rounds of unevenness and geographical clustering.
The ubiquitous availability of information has not created (and will not create) a
more egalitarian even distribution. Despite business es that increasingly conduct
commerce without geographical propinquity, the development of the information
122 D. Z. Sui

soeiety is eoaleseing into an inereasingly clustered spatial fonn at global and na-
tional seales, with a rapid dispersal at loeal seales. The Internet-Ied teleeommuni-
eation revolution simultaneously refleets and transfonns the topologies of eapital-
ism, ereating and rapidly reereating nested hierarehies of spaees teehnieally
artieulated in the global information infrastrueture led by the architecture of com-
puter networks. Indeed, as Warf (1997, 9) observed,

far from eliminating variations among places, such systems permit the exploitation 01'
differences between areas with renewed ferocity. The new geography engendered by
the telecommunication revolution dos not entail the obliteration of local uniqueness,
only its transformation and reconfiguration.

Findings ofthis research are consistent with Feldman and Florida's (1994) and
Gertler's (1995) work on spatial diffusion of innovations and on conclusions
reached from a more eonventional political economy approach (Harrison, Gant,
and Kelly 1996, Scott 1996, Storper 1997, Cooke and Morgan 1998). Such uneven
development reveals the tendency of path dependence to lock-in already-
established patterns of regional development (Rosenberg 1982). History has a
strong vote (although not a veto) in determining what geographie patterns emerge.
Exciting theoretical groundbreaking work has been conducted to explain path de-
pendence through the mechanism of increasing returns and positive feedback in
situations of multiple equilibrium (Arthur 1994, Krugman 1997; 1998).

7.5 Spinning the Web: Bring Life back to Geographie

Research

From the perspective of evolutionary eeonomics, the current Internet-Ied telematic

revolution is obviously a major genetic mutation in societal evolution. The digital
economy is emerging as a new species in the dense economic jungle (Tapscott,
Lowy, and Ticoll 1998, Kelly 1998) and may very likely become a predator in the
new business ecosystem (Moore 1993, 1996). Those who can best adapt at the
technical, behavioral, and cognitive levels will succeed (Gates 1999). This is an
enormously complex process, which is subject to many random perturbations.
Aceess and accessibility are only a necessary condition, but insufficient to guaran-
tee success. The shift in focus from aceessibility to adaptability challenges us to
rethink research questions and methodologies.
Marshall (1961, viii) noticed that 'the Mecca of the economist lies in economic
biology rather than economic mechanics,' but he was also fully aware that bio-
logieal conceptions are more complex than those of mechanics are. Biologically
motivated thinking defies some of the conventional mathematical languages to
describe reality.
 From Accessibility to Adaptability 123

Future research on the geography of the information society should be con-

ducted at the individual (ontogenetic), organizational (phylogenetic), or societal
(ecosystem) levels to better und erstand how individuals, organizations, and soci-
ety as a whole adapt to new technological innovations. We need to seek better
theoretical links of the adaptive perspective to theories in evolutionary economics
and in the new economic geography. The adaptive perspective also necessitates
studies of a person's access to technological media (either electronic or printing
press) and to various social networks via personal face-to-face contacts. Recent
studies have indicated that simply having access to information will not be suffi-
cient for a person to succeed in the socio-economic arena if he/she is not con-
nected to the appropriate social network (van der Poel 1993, Powell and Smith-
Doerr 1994). Rogerson's (1996) recent work on estimating social networks may
help us to understand how people are adapting to the new technical innovations.
One of the rallying concepts in the adaptability perspective is learning and learn-
ing capabilities (Hanssen-Bauer and Snow 1996). Regions are evolving from pro-
duction systems developed in the industrial age into massive learning systems
facilitated by both technical and social networks in the knowledge economy
(Petchell 1993, Lundvall and Johnson 1994). Understanding how a region or a
locale learns will be one of the most important challenges faced by geographers in
the information age (Jin and Stough 1998). Preliminary results indicate that the E-
merging geography of the information age will be differentiated increasingly by a
region's learning (adaptive) capabilities (Florida 1995, Asheim 1996).
These research issues require new research techniques to model the complexity
and adaptability of the information society. Although linear and deterministic
techniques are still applicable in certain situations, we need to expand efforts to
apply concepts and theories developed in non-linear dynamics. Recent develop-
ments in complexity and chaos theory seem to provide the most appropriate lan-
guage to describe reality from the adaptive perspective (Capra 1996). Incorporat-
ing insights gained from non-linear dynamics is the best way to handle surprises in
future modeling efforts. Table 7.6 summarizes major techniques to handle each of
the five surprise-generating mechanisms. Although there are overlaps among the
five possible solutions listed in Table 7.6, they are good starting points for devel-
oping a unified framework. The goal would be to integrate the fragmented model-
ing based on non-linear dynamics to unpack the geographic patterns of the infor-
mation society.
Chaos and complexity theory will playa central role in modeling the geography
of the information society. Chaos theory offers a possibility of elegantly reconcil-
ing the simultaneous presence of complexity/irregularity and simplicity/regularity
in a complex system. Chaos theory implies apparent randomness out of order and
order out of randomness. According to chaos theory, complex non-linear systems
are inherently unpredictable, no matter how sophisticated or detailed the model
may be. However, it is generally quite possible, even easier, to model the overall
behavior of a system. The way to express such an unpredictable system lies not in
exact equations, but in representations of the behavior of the system - in plots of
strange attractors or in fractals. Pioneering works have already revealed that urban
forms are essentially fractals in nature, and that urban processes can be simulated
124 D. Z. Sui

as self-organizing cellular automata and neural networks (Batty 1995; Couclelis

1997, Fischer and Gopal 1998). We can expect that new developments in non-
linear dynamics will play an increasingly more important role as we switeh our
modeling focus on industrial cities as bounded regions and networks to informa-
tion cities as space of flows and quantum states. Evolutionary economics has
reached similar conclusions as those based upon chaos theory and non-linear dy-
namics (Leydesdorffand van den Besselaar 1994, Arthur 1994).
These alternative techniques are consistent with major paradigmatie changes in
eomputing, as evidenced by various biologically motivated computing innova-
tions, sueh as genetic algorithms, evolutionary programming, and neural comput-
ing (Paton 1994). John HoIland's (1998) groundbreaking work in leaming algo-
rithms is particularly pertinent to studies of how regions leam in the information
age.

7.6 Untangling tbe Web: Beyond Accessibility and

Adaptability

Like it or not, the information age has arrived (at least in the United States, ifnot
in the world) and it is here to stay. The U.S. economy has undergone a major ge-
netic mutation from the production and shipment of tangible goods to the genera-
tion and cireulation of intangible information and knowledge. To better under-
stand the geography of the E-merging information soeiety, we must liberate
ourselves from the tyranny of mechanistic conceptualizations of reality in the Car-
tesian mode. The information society is obviously a complex adaptive nonlinear
network. Conventional conceptualizations of reality, according to deterministic,
reductionistic, ahistorical, and teleological assumptions, may be sufficient for the
industrial age, but are ineapable of eapturing the unpredictable, interconnected,
and constantly evolving new information soeiety.
The central arguments of this chapter are that the importance of access and ac-
cessibility declines as new innovations mature and that information overload is as
harmful as information scarcity. What really matters in the information age is
adaptability, which entails how individuals, organizations, or regions leam from
what they have access to and translate knowledge into productive use. By shifting
focus from accessibility to adaptability, we will not only enhance understanding of
the eomplexity and evolution ofthe information age better, but also bring life back
into geographie research by ridding it ofthe mechanistic metaphor.
The geographical understanding of the information age demands more than just
another twist of accessibility measurements by modifying the various versions of
the Newtonian gravity model. The adaptability perspeetive proposed in this chap-
ter demands a fundamental paradigm shift in geographie research at the semantic
and syntactic, as weIl as pragmatic, levels. At the semantic level, we are dealing
with a fundamentally different kind of society as a result of the telematie revolu-
 From Accessibility to Adaptability 125

tion. Many old concepts and theories are no longer applicable and new theories for
understanding this new reality have yet to be developed. At the syntactic level,
developments in science and technology during the later half of 20th century pro-
vided new languages to describe and model various facets of society. These new
theories and concepts, reflected in chaos theory, cellular automata, fractal geogra-
phy, and self-organizing theory, are coalescing rapidly into a non-linear science
that challenges deterministic and linear thinking of the Newtonian tradition. Al-
though we may never be able to eliminate surprises from our models, we can still
hold out the possibility of creating something approximating what Casti (1994)
called a science of the surprising.
As for policy implications, the adaptability perspective emphasizes the cognitive
and learning capabilities of individuals, organizations, and geographie regions
(Senge 1990) instead of the single-minded pursuit to satisfy the insatiable des ire to
have unlimited access to resources and information. The adaptive paradigm seeks
to balance economic efficiency, social equity, and environmental sustainability so
that society and environment can co-evolve in harmony and avoid further trage-
dies for the commons. Philosophically, adaptability shifts the focus from access-
ing without to learning within. From the adaptability perspective, it is far more
important for an individual, an organization, or a geographie region to be inspired
than to be wired. Studies on the geography of information society will eventually
gravitate toward the three fundamental questions that Immanuel Kant (1998)
raised in Critique of Pure Reason. Who are we? What can we do? What should
we do? Research on the information society may fail miserably if we do not step
back to ponder on these more fundamental questions. I strongly believe that a re-
search focus on adaptability may provide better answers to Kant's questions than
would a focus on accessibility. Adaptability implies a change of human con-
sciousness that is essential if the world is ever to be transformed to a sustainable
state.

Acknowledgements

The author would like to thank Don Janelle for substantive and editorial comments that
significantly improved the quality of this chapter; Shawn Dawson and Kristi Rudy at
MIDS, Inc. for helping me compile the Internet domain data at the zip code level for the
state ofTexas; Paul Adams for referring me to TeleGeography'1999; and Fayu Lai for re-
search assistance in data processing.

References
Abler, R.F. 1991. Hardware, software, and brainware: mapping and understanding tele-
communications technologies. In Brunn, S.D. and Leinbach, T.R. (eds.) Collapsing
Spaee and Time: Geographie aspeets of eommunieations and information. New York:
Harpercollins Academic, 31-48.
Arrow, KJ. 1962. The economic implications of leaming by doing. Review of Eeonomie
Studies 29: 155-73.
Arthur, W.B. 1994. Inereasing Returns and Path Dependenee in the Eeonomy. Arm Arbor
MI: The University ofMichigan Press.
126 D. Z. Sui

Asheim, B. 1996. Industrial districts as 'Iearning regions': a condition for prosperity?

European Planning Studies 4:379-400.
Barnes, T.1. 1997. Theories of accumulation and regulation: bring life back into economic
geography. In Lee, R. and Wills, J. (ed.) Geographies ofEconomies. New York: Arnold,
231-47.
Batty, M. 1995. Cities and complexity: implications for modeling sustainability. In
Brotchie, 1., Batty, M., Blakely, E., Hall, P., and Newton, P. (eds.) Cities in Competition:
Productive and Sustainable Cities for the 2Ft Century. Melbourne: Longman Australia
469-86.
Bednarz, R.S. 1998. Editor as information filter. Journal ofGeography 98:40-1.
Brin, D. 1990. Earth. New York: Bantam.
Brynjolfsson, E. and Yang, S. 1996. Information Technology and Productivity: a review of
the literature. Advances in Computers 43: 179-214.
Cairncross, F. 1997. The Death of Distance: How the Communications Revolution will
Change Dur Lives. Cambridge MA: Harvard Business School Press.
Capra, F. 1996. The Web of Life: A New Scientific Understanding of Living Systems. New
York: Anchor Books.
Casti, J.L. 1994. Complexification: Cxplaining A Paradoxical World Through the Scienee
ofSurprise. New York: HarperCollins.
Clemente, P. 1998. The State ofthe Net: The New Frontier. New York: McGraw-Hill.
Cooke P. and Morgan K. 1998. The Assoeational Eeonomy: Firms, Regions, And Innova-
tion. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Couclelis, H. (ed.) 1996. Spatial Teehnologies, Geographie Information, and the City.
Santa Barbara, CA: University of California, Santa Barbara, NCGIA Technical Report
96-10.
Couclelis, H. 1997. From cellular automata to urban models: new principles for model de-
velopment and implementation. Environment and Planning B 24:165-74.
Davenport, T.H. 1997. Information Eeology: Mastering the Information and Knowledge
Environment. New York: Oxford University Press.
Dawkins, R. 1976. The Selfish Gene. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
England, R.W. (ed.) 1994. Evolutionary Coneepts in Contemporary Eeonomies. Ann Arbor,
MI: The University ofMichigan Press.
Feldman, M.P. and Florida R. 1994. The geographie sources of innovation: technological
infrastructure and product innovation in the United States. Annals of the Association of
American Geographer 84:210-29.
Fischer, M. and Gopal, S. 1998. Artificial neural networks: a new approach to modeling
interregional telecommunication flows. In Haynes, K.E., Button, K.J., and Nijkamp, P.
(eds.) Regional Dynamies. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar, 167-89.
Fleck, J. 1993. Learning by trying: the implementation of contiguration technology. Re-
search Policy, 23 637-52.
Florida, R. 1995. Toward the learning region. Futures, 27:527-36.
Gates, B. 1999. Business @Speed ofThought: Using a Digital Nervous System. New York:
Warner Books.
Gertler, M. 1995. Being there: Proximity, organization and culture in the development and
adoption of advanced manufacturing technologies. Eeonomic Geography 71: 1-26.
 From Accessibility to Adaptability 127

Hägerstrand, T. 1975. Space, time and human condition. In Karlkvist, A., Lundqvist, L.,
and Snickars, F. (eds.), Dynamic Allocation o/Urban Space, Farnborough: Saxon House,
3-12.
Handy, S.L. and Niemeier, D.A 1997. Measuring accessibility: an exploration ofissues and
alternatives. Environment and Planning A 29: 1175-94.
Hanson, S. 1998. Off the road? reflections on the transportation geography in the informa-
tion age. Journal o/Transport Geography 6:241-9.
Hanssen-Bauer, 1. and Snow, C. 1996. Responding to hypercompetition: the structure and
processes of a regionallearning network organization. Organization Science 7 :413-27.
Harrison, B., Gant, J., and Kelly, M. 1996. Innovative firm behavior and local milieu: ex-
ploring the intersection of agglomeration, industrial organization, and technological
change. Economic Geography 72:233-58.
Harvey, D. 1996. Justice, Nature and the Geography 0/ DifJerence. Cambridge MA:
Blackwell Publishers.
Hodge, D.C. 1997. Accessibility-related issues. Journal o/Transport Geography 5:33-4.
Hodgson, G.M. 1993. Economics and Evolution: Bringing Life Back into Economics. Ann
Arbor MI: University ofMichigan Press.
Holland, 1.H. 1998. Emergence: From Chaos to Order. Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley.
Hughes, T.P. 1983. Networks 0/ Power: Electrification in Western Society, 1880-1930.
Baltimore MD: John Hopkins University Press.
Janelle, D.G. 1993. Urban social behaviour in time and space. In Bourne, L.S, and Ley,
D.F. (eds.) The Changing Socia! Geography o/Canadian Cities Montreal and Kingston:
McGill-Queens University Press, 103-18.
Jin, DJ. and Stough, R.R. 1998. Learning and learning capability in the Fordist and Post-
Fordist age: an integrative framework. Environmental and P!anning A 30: 1255-78.
Kant, I. (Guyer, P., and Wood, AW., trans.) 1998. Critique 0/ Pure Reason. New York:
Cambridge University Press.
Kelly, K. 1998. New Ru!es tor the New Economy: Ten radical strategies tor a connected
world. New York: Viking.
Krugman, P. 1997. How the economy organizes itself in space: A survey of the new eco-
nomic geography. In Arthur, W.B., Durlauf, S.N. and Lane, D.A (eds.) The Economy as
an Evolving Complex Systems 11. Reading MA: Addison-Wesley, 239-62.
Krugman, P. 1998. What's new about the new economic geography? Ox/ord Review 0/
Economic Policy 14:7-17.
Kwan, M.P. 1998. Space-time and integral measures of individual accessibility: A
comparative analysis using a point-based framework. Geographical Analysis 30:191-216.
Leebaert, D. (ed.) 1998. The Future o/the E!ectronic Marketplace. Cambridge MA: The
MIT Press.
Leydesdorff, L.A. and van den Besselaar, P. 1994. Evolutionary Economics and Chaos
Theory: New Directions in Technology Studies. New York: St. Martin's.
Litan, R.E. and Niskanen, W.A. 1998. Going Digital: A guide to Policy in the Digital Age.
Washington DC: Brookings Institutions.
Lundvall, B. and Johnson, B. 1994. The learning economy. Journal o/Industry Studies
1:23-41.
Lynch, A 1999. Thought Contagion : How Belie/ Spreads Through Society. New York:
Basic Books.
128 D. Z. Sui

Margherio, L. 1997. The Emerging Digital Economy. Project report prepared for the De-
partment ofConunerce. Available on-line at http://www.econunerce.gov
Marshali, A. 1961. Prindples 0/ Economics (9th ed., with annotations by C. W. Guille-
baud). London: Macmillan for The Royal Economic Society.
Miller, H.J. 1999. Measuring space-time accessibility benefits within transportation net-
works: Basic theory and computational procedures. Geographical Analysis, 31: 1-26.
Mirowski, P. (ed.).1994. Natural Image in Economic Thought: 'Markets Red in Tooth and
Claw. ' Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Mirowski, P. 1989. More Heat Than Light: Economics as Sodal Physics and Physics as
Nature's Economics. New York: Cambridge University Press.
MitchelI, W.J. 1995. City 0/ Bits: Space, Place, and the In/obahn. Cambridge MA: MIT
Press.
Mody, A. 1993. Learning through alliances. Journal 0/ Economic Behavior and Organiza-
tion 20:151-70.
Mokyr, J. 1997. Are we living in the middle of an industrial revolution? Economic Review
82:31-44.
Moore, J.F. 1993. Predators and prey: A new ecology of competition. Harvard Business
Review May/June, 75-86.
Moore, J.F. 1996. The Death 0/ Competition: Leadership and Strategy in the Age 0/ Busi-
ness Ecosystems. New York: Harper Business.
Nelson, R.R. 1995. Recent evolutionary theorizing about economic change. Journal 0/
Economic Literature, 53:48-90.
NUA. 1998. How MaYTY Online?
(http://www.nua.ie/surveys/how_ many_ online/index.html).
Ohmae, K. 1990. The Boderless Wor/d New York: Harper Business.
Ohmae, K. 1995. The End o/the Nation Sate: The Rise o/Regional Economics. New York:
Free Press.
Paton, R. 1994. Computing with Biological Metaphors. New York: Chapman & Hall.
PetchelI, J. 1993. From production systems to learning systems. Environment and Planning
A 15:797-815.
Powell, W. and Smith-Doerr, L. 1994. Networks and economic life. In Smelser, N. and
Swedberg, R. (eds.) The Handbook 0/ Economic Sociology. Princeton NJ: Princeton Uni-
versity Press, 368-402.
Rogers, J.D. 1998. Executive sununary of GVU's WWW User Survey. Available at
http://www.cc.gatech.edulgvuluser_ surveys/survey-1998-04/
Rogerson, P.A. 1996. Estimating the size of social networks. Geographical Analysis 29:50-
63.
Rosenberg, N. 1982. Inside the Black Box: Technology and Economics. Cambridge: Cam-
bridge University Press.
Schindler, P.E. 1998. Horne Internet use breeds depression.
http://www.techweb.com:3030/internetlstoryININ 19980831 SOOO I
Scott, A. 1996. Regional motors ofthe global economy. Futures, 28:391-411.
Senge, P.M. 1990. The Fifih Discipline: The Art 0/ Practice 0/ the Learning Organization.
New York: Doubleday.
Shen, Q. 1998. Location characteristics of inner-city neighborhoods and employment ac-
cessibility oflow-wage workers. Environment and Planning B 25:345-65.
 From Accessibility to Adaptability 129

Simon, H.A. 1997. Designing organizations for an information-rieh world. In Lamberton,

D.M. (ed.) The Economics olCommunication and Information. Cheltenham UK: Edward
Eigar Publishing, 187-202.
Storper, M. 1997. The Regional World: Territorial Development in aGlobai Economy.
New York: Guilford.
Sui, D.Z. 1998. Environmental impacts of the E-merging digital economy: Toward the
greening of electronic commerce via information ecology. Working paper, Department of
Geography, Texas A&M University, College Station, Texas (available from the author
upon request).
Sui, D.Z. 2000. Geography without vision? Talking about geography in the new millenium.
Annals olthe Association 01 American Geographers (in press).
Tapscott, D., Lowy, A., and Ticoll, D. (eds.) 1998. Blueprint to the Digital Economy:
Wealth Creation in the Rra oiE-Business. New York: McGraw-Hill.
van der Poel, M.G.M. 1993. Delineating personal support networks. Social Networks 15:49-
70.
Warf, B. 1997. Telecommunications and the changing geographies ofknowledge transmis-
sion in the late 20th century. In Alberts, D.S. and Papp, D.S. (eds.) The Information Age:
An Anthology on its Impact and Consequences. Available from
http://www.ndu.edu/ndu/inss/books/anthologyl/index.html.
Wilson, E.O. 1975. Sociobiology: The New Synthesis. Cambridge MA: Harvard University
Press.
 Part 11

Visualization and Representation

8 Representing and Visualizing Physical,
Virtual and Hybrid Information Spaces

Michael Battyt, and Harvey J. Miller2

1 Centre for Advanced Spatial Analysis, University College London, 1-19 Torrington Place,
London WClE 6BT, UK. Email: m.batty@ucl.ac.uk
2 Department of Geography, University of Utah, 260 S. Central Campus Drive Room 270,
Salt Lake City UT 84112-9155, USA. Email: harvey.miller@geog.utah.edu

8.1 Introduction: Varieties of Space

The strongest convention in contemporary geographie thought is the notion that

geographie space is rooted in a Euclidean geometry that defines the physical
world. Although geographers have long sought to escape this paradigm through a
rich array of perceptions based on ways in which we might imagine space, physi-
cal distance or its economic surrogates still provide the basic logic used by geog-
raphers to order their world and to make sense of the way activities locate in time
and space. There is however a sea change in the making. As the world moves from
one organized around energy to one based on information, the role of physical
distance is changing as it is complemented by near instantaneous transactions that
dramatically distort the effect of distance, thus changing the traditional bonds that
have led to the current geographical organization of cities, regions, and nation
states (Caimcross 1997).
This transition is from a society dominated by the movement and manipulation
of materials to one dominated by the movement and manipulation of information.
In Negroponte's (1995) terms, it is a transition from a world based on atoms to one
based on bits, from a material world to an ethereal one where the convergence of
computers and communications - the devices used to manipulate and transport the
bits - has evolved new varieties of space, collectively referred to, in the popular
lexicon, as cyberspace.
Despite the rapid emergence of cyberspace and the many attempts to chart and
measure its morphology and spread, a more complete and focused conception is in
the idea of the information space. The new information spaces that are emerging
are rooted in both the material and ethereal worlds of commodities and flows, and
cannot be understood without each other (Castells 1996). Ifwe are to explore the
continued relevance of ideas based on the measurement of accessibility or propin-
quity defined traditionally in relation to physical locations and interactions, then
we need to examine the ways in which information and energy are combining to
134 M. Batty and H. J. Miller

create new spaces and new patterns of human behavior. In short, new definitions
and conceptualizations of accessibility can only be defined by mapping physical
or material space onto virtual or ethereal space, thus defining a nexus of hybrid
space which, we will argue here, represents the appropriate focus for a new geog-
raphy of the information age.
A popular example serves to make our point. The current fascination with the
online bookshop Amazon.com, which is mentioned many times in this book, is
based on the notion we can substitute making a physical visit to the bookshop with
a virtual visit, even engaging in price comparison, reducing the need for several
visits to different places. However although much of our behavior in browsing and
purchasing is removed from the physical realm, ultimately the book needs to be
delivered in its material form and this depends on where it is warehoused and how
it is shipped. In the case of Amazon.com, there are 6 warehouses in the United
States and 2 in Europe, strategically located to minimize physical transfer costs
and to maximize access to population centers, thus reinforcing long established
ideas that location ultimately depends upon physical accessibility (Dodge 1999).
Of course bookshops are probably not the best example as the product itself can
easily be made virtual - it does not need to be material - although food shopping
and other popular kinds of e-commerce reinforce the point.
We can visualize the interpenetration of these two kinds of space, although in
themselves they are much variegated, as an intersection of two worlds. lt is even
possible that there is simply one world, for one cannot exist without the other,
although there is an assumption that the physical world existed prior to the virtual.
In the sense of the virtual world being exclusively cyberspace, this is indeed the
case. However, it is convenient to consider these domains as intersecting but not
being coincident, for this serves to show how geographers (and all other social
scientists, of course) often abstract them as one or the other, thus providing per-
spectives from one viewpoint or the other.

Place ----.
Non-Place ----. SPACE

.....''----------
~
Figure 8.1. Geographie abstraetion of physieal, virtual and hybrid worlds.
 Physical, Virtual and Hybrid Information Spaces 135

The first level of geographic abstraction is in terms of the place or non-place

urban realm (Webber 1964) but spatial analysis usually lies beyond this to a level
of abstraction where there is rarely any distinction between the aspatial and the
spatial in geographic terms. For our current focus on the role of accessibility in
articulating and understanding the morphologies and morphogenesis of these new
information spaces, Figure 8.1 shows that traditional accessibility and related spa-
tial analysis might be applied to one or the other but the message of this introduc-
ti on is that neither are any longer complete as information space is necessarily a
product of both. There is still a place for analyses of one or the other, which em-
phasize certain characteristics to the excJusion of others, but an integrated und er-
standing must be based on the analysis of hybrid information spaces.
So far there are few meaningful cJassifications of physical and virtual space, and
there have been even fewer attempts at exploring how concepts and models devel-
oped for one can transfer to the other. In short, the extent to which we can general-
ize geographic theory from the predominantly physical domain to the virtual or
rather adapt such theory to the hybrid domain is uncJear. T 0 an extent, this is what
all the contributors to this book are attempting from different perspectives. There
are many ideas, but most are preliminary and somewhat rudimentary. It appears
that the economic geography of the production and consumption of these new
technologies bears an uncanny resemblance to the old order, with the role of his-
torical accident and agglomeration economies still being significant in where such
activity is located. For the ways cities are restructuring, then the effect of distance
is being distorted as physical ties on single locations are loosened - witness the
edge-city effect, particularly in North America, and the growth ofthe global city-
but, as yet, we have little idea of how our collective access to facilities is chang-
ing. Clearly the transition to an information age is increasing opportunities for
different kinds of physical and virtual interaction dramatically for some groups,
while locking out others, although even the contemporary geography of disadvan-
tage seems to follow established social, ethnic, and gender lines.
In our introduction to this part of the book, we will consider how the traditional
notion of accessibility is relevant to an understanding of the way these new infor-
mation spaces are being structured and how old spaces are being restructured. We
will first explore these traditions and then we will speculate on how existing spa-
tial analysis and geographic information systems and science might be used to
detect the new morphologies of information (see Batty, et al. 1998, Clarke 1998).
We will then suggest a wider research agenda, concJuding with some more spe-
cific ideas as to where research might be immediately targeted.
136 M. Batty and H. J. Miller

8.2 Prevailing Themes

The Inadequacy of Traditional Definitions

The traditional definition of accessibility focuses on physical proximity. For ex-

ample, three major approaches to measuring accessibility are constraint-based
measures, attraction-accessibility measures, and benefit measures (see Miller
1999). Constraint-based measures demarcate the activity locations that are avail-
able to an individual, typically from a space-time perspective. Attraction-
accessibility measures measure the trade-off between the attractiveness of destina-
tions versus their interaction costs. Benefit measures involve a similar trade-off
but attempt to measure explicitly the benefits accruing to the individual from a
choice set. In all three approaches, there is an explicit assumption that physical
distance is a major structuring factor that influences spatial choices and therefore
accessibility.
In contrast, the virtual world ignores (or at least greatly discounts) physical
space. The cast of virtual interaction has little to do with relative location. Instead,
virtual interaction cost relates to factors such as network capacity, server capacity,
and current load; these translate into the latency (delay time) experienced by the
user. Another cost is the difficulty in navigating the space and extracting useful
information (see Dodge, Chapter 11). This suggests the need for a major re-
conceptualization and expansion of our definitions of accessibility.
It is also not obvious that traditional mapping techniques can yield significant
insights into virtual spaces. The terms 'virtual space' and 'cyberspace' may in fact
be oxymorons since there is little that is 'spatial' in these realms, at least in the
traditional sense. For representational and analytical tractability, formal and com-
putational models of physical space invoke certain restrictions on its topological
and geometric properties. These typically inc1ude metric-space properties for dis-
tance measures such as non-negativity, identity, symmetry and tri angular inequal-
ity (see Beguin and Thisse 1979, Smith 1989). A cyber-spatial analysis by Murion
(Chapter 12) suggests that latency, the most obvious distance measure in virtual
space, does not obey the properties of metric space. We can handle the relaxation
of metric-space properties only if they are carefully controlled (see Muller 1982,
Smith 1989). Moreover, current GIS software does not treat non-Euc1idean space
in an appropriate way.
An alternative to direct mapping of virtual space, implied by virtual interaction,
is to map locations of the physical and logical components of virtual space within
physical space. An example is mapping the locations of Internet hubs, host com-
puters, domain names, or backbone networks within physical space as a measure
of accessibility to cyber-space. Empirical analysis by Moss and Townsend (Chap-
ter 10) suggests caution. The spatiallgeographical metaphor may not be appropri-
ate, particularly since information flow in most networks apparently does not cor-
relate with geographical space (see Mitchell 1995).
 Physical, Virtual and Hybrid Information Spaces 137

Interactions between Virtual Space and Physical Space

Although virtual space is aspatial and does not correlate weil with geographie
space, it is c1ear that virtual space and physical space influence each other. Activ-
ity in virtual space can affect activity in physical space and vice-versa. For exam-
pie, virtual interaction can be both a substitute and a complement to physical in-
teraction. An example of the former relationship is when an individual shops
online rather than visiting a retail establishment. An example of the latter case is
when an individual uses the Web to find a new restaurant or plan a vacation.
To date, there is little research on the interactions between activities in virtual
space and physical space (but see, however, Salomon (1986); and Shen (1998)).
There is a tradition within the geographie literature on measuring the interaction
between physical interaction and perceived/experienced geographie space. For
example, Abler (1975) explores the impact of space-adjusting technologies on
human activities in geographie space while Janelle (1968, 1969, 1991) has pio-
neered the concept of time-space convergence to describe the radical impacts of
transportation on spatial relationships. Reginald Golledge and Waldo Tobler have
developed analytical techniques for transforming geographie space based on the
perceived distances and observed interaction patterns (see, e.g., Golledge and
Spector 1978, Tobler and Wineburg 1971, Tobler 1976, 1978), but the usefulness
of these techniques for visualizing hybrid space has not yet been explored.
Identifying significant centers and locations in both the virtual and material
worlds is also an important task for future research. Of equal importance to meas-
uring flows is research into the content of such flows and into the processes that
mediate these flows. Markets are increasingly structured in real time across elec-
tronic networks. This poses a level of complexity on the real world that makes
traditional market analytical techniques untenable. Also important is developing
c1ear notions of the demand for and supply of information, particularly with re-
spect to highly diverse networks where there are already very c1ear distinctions in
terms of usage. What is available and what is required for what purposes are very
different notions that must be identified, not only in relation to new information
spaces but also to how these spaces map onto existing physical spaces. These may
be articulated at various scales from social networks to global markets.

The Quality ofInteraction in Physical, Virtual and Hybrid Worlds

Questions as to the quality of interactions in and hybrid worlds are also central
themes. Despite progress in immersive and virtual reality technologies, it is likely
that qualitative differences between interaction using physical and virtual modes
will persist for some time. Previous research on consumer search behavior c1early
demonstrates that individuals use different modes depending on the type of infor-
mation sought (for a review, see Miller 1993). As virtual and hybrid worlds ex-
pand to encompass more aspects of daily life, it is likely that a complex partition-
138 M. Batty and H. J. Miller

ing of aetivities among these modes will oeeur. The nature of this partitioning is
far from c1ear.
A related theme eoneems the quality of information within physieal, virtual, and
hybrid spaees. Vagueness and fluidity eharaeterize virtual spaees. Apparently
good and bad information spaees ean be eontrasted with good and bad information
within these spaees with no one-to-one eorrespondenee between eaeh. The transi-
tory nature of the digital world eontrasts with the material world where informa-
tion spaees are usually struetured in terms of built form that has a life span with
some permanenee. This foeus on temporality is an issue that serves to test the lim-
its of our debate, reinforeing the long standing idea that time geography and ae-
eessibility in time, as well as or rather than spaee, is of mueh more signifieanee
here than we had hitherto thought.
The c1iehe of the digital world - that networks enable people to interaet with
anyone, anywhere, at any time and in any place - illustrates our erude vision of
the emerging digital world. Here our foeus is mueh more eonsidered with an em-
phasis on how humans interaet with one another in spaee and time, adapting to
aeeess the right amount and the right information in the right time and in the right
place. Harvey and Maenab (Chapter 9) c1early illustrate these issues with their
diseussion of interpersonal temporal aeeessibility at the global seale. The ability to
interaet in real-time may be the eritieal faetor that distinguishes among world eul-
tures rather than traditional notions of geographie separation and determinism.

Navigation Tools for Information Space

Another theme that weaves its way through the debate involves the development
of tools and protoeols to enable efficient navigation through information spaee.
This instrumental viewpoint suggests that good geographical metaphors, grounded
in good theory about the information soeiety, should be at the basis of navigation
tools that link behavior to purpose. Mueh visualization work is eoneemed with the
development of better tools. These tools are being developed and tempered by the
various institutional struetures that require them. At the same time, we are begin-
ning to leam more about new information spaees using the very tools designed for
using these spaees in a routine fashion. As we develop tools to explore these new
spaees, these tools are being used in routine ways to navigate them. At the same
time, the existenee of these tools modifies these spaees. This is a kind of relativ-
ism that is rarely highlighted in the material world.

8.3 The Morphology of Cyberspace

Although there are few indieators of the kinds of strueture and behavior, form and
proeess, that are determining the shape of these new information spaees, there are
 Physical, Virtual and Hybrid Infonnation Spaces 139

already so me hints as to what we might expect. As in tradition al studies of geo-

graphie space, these are dominated by explanations and models ofthe morphology
of cyberspace in its many forms, rather then the processes through which it is
evolving. This emphasis on form rather than process is one of the most problem-
atic features of social research. It is not only difficult to observe social and eco-
nomic processes at work, it is often impossible to infer the modus operandi of
human decision-making that is determined by multiple causes and contextual cir-
cumstances. In the case of cyberspace, this is doubly difficult in that getting access
to observe processes that take place invisibly across networks requires very spe-
cial analytical skills and even then, the completeness of any survey is forever in
doubt.
Cyberspace like other spaces has a form that is being mapped, and a natural
starting point is to see whether or not the frictionless world that has emerged has
any paral1el in traditional geographie spaces. The macro-properties of traditional
physical space has largely been charted and explained using ideas from social
physics. Interaction patterns and accessibility measures were original1y developed
in analogy with the laws of classical physics, with gravitational force and potential
energy being concepts of great relevance in explaining or at least summarizing
how space becomes structured. In terms of interaction, Murnion (Chapter 12) has
made several studies of interaction over the Internet using traditional models but
with distance being replaced by new measures of latency, which have shifted the
focus away from Euclidean distance and its surrogates - time or cost - to network
measures, which depend upon switching and relays and the capacity of telecom-
munications.
Even more specific results that appeal to social physics are being produced.
Bernado Huberman and his colleagues at Xerox PARC, in aseries of studies of
the size and shape of the Web have produced quite conclusive evidence that the
net is scaling in that servers and server capacity are distributed according to the
rank-size rule (Markoff 1999). This has implications for the structure of the net as
a hierarchical system - remember that Christaller's central place system generates
rank-size or at least scaling laws of center size - while work grounded in the dis-
tribution of Web hosts geographically bears out similar scaling. Moss and Town-
send (Chapter 10) reveal that same kind ofpattern for the New York region, while
Shiode and Dodge (1998) provide a dramatic graphie of this kind of spatial or-
ganization in their picture of Web hosts in South East England, shown in Figure
8.2. Contrast this with Stewart and Warntz's (1958) maps of population potential
of North America and Britain, which is at the basis of the physical measurement
of accessibility across many scales.
140 M. Batty and H. J. Miller

Figure 8.2. The new geography of economic potential: accessibility to Internet hubs (from
Shiode and Dodge 1998).

Casual evidence also reveals the importance of the local and the global in the
morphology of cyberspace. Any casual examination of your email log will reveal
distance decay around your local site that is obvious enough in that most email
deals with human activity through a virtual medium in a local physical space.
However for academics and increasingly for the public at large logged into the
Web, such local interaction is being supplemented with global interaction, which
binds our social networks together in ways that serve to strengthen the global
economy. New network studies of the small-world problem (Watts and Strogatz
1998) suggest that such occasional global ties increase interaction much more sig-
nificantly than the number of such ties might suggest and, thus, studies of the net
and nets using such ideas appear promising.
For the shape ofthe net, there is enough evidence to show that this too is scaling
- fractal- in that links (through Web sites for example) are scaling in importance,
and follow the classic dendritic pattern that we find in many areas of morphology
from the growth of crystals to the growth of cities and other organisms and or-
ganizations. In Figure 8.3(a), we show a piece of the network diagram of the net
produced by Bill Cheswick and Hai Burch at Bell Labs, which has clear fractal
structure. The particular segment - its nodes and links - is not important per se but
its fractal structure iso In Figure 8.3(b) we show the morphology of a virtual com-
munity in cyberspace - Alphaworld - reported on by Dodge (Chapter 11), which
has also evolved as a fractal around the point that members enter this virtual world
- at ground zero. There is no friction of distance in Alphaworld but its physics is
dictated by who came first and the town has evolved around ground zero and
along easily recognizable radial routes.
 Physical, Virtual and Hybrid Information Spaces 141

b
Figure 8.3. Morphologies ofvirtual space: cyberspace. (a) the fractal structure ofthe Inter-
net (http://cm.bell-labs.com/cm/cs/who/ches/map/index.html); (b) the spatial structure ofa
virtual world - Alphaworld (see Dodge, Chapter 11).
142 M. Batty and H. J. Miller

,,' "'1.
"1::..a: .....- ...
...-.-.
.,. 11:
·004'. 0", ....1..'"
-.(.
. I • .' ..r..r •
_.
a._
..... '.
.:::e....... r:..".. :.~
~•• I.~
r

.' •,. .1....... :-.:a..a.

••
I. ..PI
rt'
~

...
I. -. . ••
• r,.
~.....&.II.....:
~.:
". :.:-,. ...._-:.
. it·
.I:.:-" :. .........._.-'r
, _-:r-....- .- a:. ._ _.:.. ••
t..:..:.~ r...... ;"'. .,. .........._...
I. ......:... t •••
.:..' .- a. ..
.•.•
I . '• • • • • •
.):. +" r
0.1~:-
......
'or ~
• - •
0,r-
b

Figure 8.4. Morphologies of real space: Euclidean geographical space. (a) route structure
ofa medium-sized English town; and (d) model ofurban growth based on diffusion-limited
aggregation.
 Physical, Virtual and Hybrid Information Spaces 143

We can compare these to more traditional ways of measuring urban space. In

Figure 8.4(a), there is a picture of the road network in a medium-sized English
town (Wolverhampton: population circa 250,000) that is cIearly fractal, aIthough
this might be at any scale, and finally in Figure 8.4(b) we show crystal growth
using the process of diffusion-limited aggregation, which has been used to meas-
ure and model several real towns. All these examples show that the physical and
the virtual worlds have much in common, and this suggests that models of physi-
cal space, such as accessibility, may have more to offer in the study of new
information spaces than we have assumed hitherto.
These are but brief forays into a speculative realm that forms a much wider re-
search agenda set by all the contributions in this book. Here we will concIude our
introduction to this section by sketching this agenda for measuring and modeling
hybrid information spaces.

8.4 A Research Agenda

We will now attempt to cull all these deliberations into a plan for future research
based on (i) what do we know? and what do we have? (ii) what are appropriate
future research directions? and; (iii) what are appropriate research questions? We
will deal with these in turn. AIthough the various debates that follow in the chap-
ters within this section cover a wide range of issues, we will map out our research
agenda in terms of the initial themes introduced here, stating these as questions
that frame research directions.
We begin by considering 'What Do We Know about Visualizing and Represent-
ing Information Space?' A thorough review of these questions is required. This
might be accomplished through research projects but it is more Iikely to come
from the current generation of researchers, such as those of us writing here, com-
ing to concIusions similar to our own and spontaneously developing such reviews
and statements. There are several themes that might spin-off from such reviews
and we will list these:

• Representing Networks. This incIudes reviewing different ways of coding

and identifYing networks based on extensions of graph theoretic measures,
methods of sampling and so on that can account for their virtual as well as
physical/logical nature.
• Conceptualizing Activity Spaces and Accessibility Measures. These are
relevant to the virtual world but have developed to date largely for spatial is-
sues in the real world.
• Cataloguing Market Data. This incIudes reviewing methods for counting
and observing network tlows and new concentrations of information in real
and virtual space.
144 M. Batty and H. J. Miller

• Exploring the Role of Geographie Information Seien ce in the Analysis of

Virtual and Hybrid Information Spaces. This focuses on assessing how far
existing methods of GIS in particular and spatial analysis in general are useful
for mapping new information spaces.
• Exploring the Role of Scientific Visualization in Measuring and Map-
ping. This requires reviewing how new methods of visualization for spatial
and non-spatial data in spaces with many dimensions might be used to chart
new information spaces.

These reviews begin to merge into major research questions to define the re-
search frontier, and there are some obvious areas that require research programs:
again we state four of these to provide some sense of where we consider the focus
should be:

• Researehing the Flow and Cost of Information. How flows can be identi-
fied and linked to the emergence of new spaces, which, in turn, map onto ex-
isting market, social, and institutional processes.
• Tools of Cybernavigation. The development of new tools for both exploring
and moving through information spaces that are based on insights into the
emergence of such spaces, the interface between activity in real and virtual
worlds, and developments in human-computer interaction.
• Mapping Activity Spaces. Exploring ways in which existing approaches
within time geography can be informed and extended by network paradigms,
network flow data, and scientific visualization.
• Visualization of Connections between Virtual and Real/Material Geog-
raphies. Providing insights into how information spaces are connected to real
spaces through augmenting existing measures of accessibility and the devel-
opment of new ones.

Much more specific research issues can also be identified, which might drive
forward the research agenda. There is an urgent need for a major initiative in the
collection of network data and its subsequent analysis with respect to the search
for new information spaces. These initiatives could take many forms and we list
four here:

• an Internet census: a data archive for the Internet

• the definition of private networks
• the collection of behavioral data associated with many varieties of
network
• the role oftime sampling in the use ofnetworks

We also need to evaluate the role of existing tools in spatial analysis and to de-
velop new tools relevant to the issues we have identified pertaining to the analysis
 Physical, Virtual and Hybrid Infonnation Spaces 145

of infonnation spaees within an infonnation society. This should foeus in partieu-

lar on principles and tools in eontemporary eartography and seientifie visualiza-
tion. We also need to develop new theories that generalize the eoneept of distanee
from physical to the virtual domains, and from this would flow models and visu-
alizations of aeeessibility in real, virtual, and hybrid spaees based on generaliza-
tions of geographie distanee in fonnal, logieal, and eomputational tenns.
This research agenda is wide and deep but although there are many straws in the
wind, it would appear that mueh geographie and spatial knowledge developed in
the last 100 years, although broadly relevant in a philosophie sense to new inquir-
ies into infonnation spaees, needs to be redefined, reworked, and restruetured in
ways that meet the challenges we have identified here, and the ways these are
elaborated in the articles that follow.

References
Abler, R 1974. Effects of space-adjusting technologies on the human geography of the
future. In Abler, R, Janelle, D., Philbrick, A, and Sommer, J. (eds.) Human Geography
in a Shrinking World. North Sciutuate MA: Duxbury Press, 35-52.
Batty, M., Dodge, M., Doyle, S. and Smith, A 1998. Modelling virtual environments. In
Longley, P.A, Brooks, S.M., McDonnell, R., and Macmillan, B. (eds.) Geocomputation:
A Prim er. Chichester UK: John Wiley, 139-61.
Beguin, H. and Thisse, l-F. 1979. An axiomatic approach to geographical space. Geo-
graphical Analysis, 11 :325-41.
Caimcross, F. 1997. The Death ofDistance. Cambridge MA: Harvard Business Press.
Castells, M. 1996. The Rise ofthe N etwork Society. Oxford UK: Blackwells.
Clarke, K. 1998. Visualising different geofutures. In P.A Longley, Brooks, S.M., McDon-
nell, R., and Macmillan, B. (eds.) Geocomputation: A Prim er. Chichester, UK: John
Wiley, 119-37.
Dodge, M. 1999. Finding the source ofthe Amazon.com: Examining the truth behind the
hype of the 'earth's biggest bookshop'. A paper presented to the 5th E*Space Confer-
ence, Cape Town, South Africa, July 1999.
Golledge, RG., and Spector, A N. 1978. Comprehending the urban environment: Theory
and practice. Geographical Analysis 10:403-26.
Janelle, D.G. 1968. Central place development in a time-space framework. Professional
Geographer, 20:5-10.
Janelle, D.G. 1969. Spatial organization: A model and concept. Annals ofthe Association
ofAmerican Geographers 59:348-64.
Janelle, D.G. 1991. Global interdependence and its consequences. In Brunn, S.D., and
Leinbach, T.R. (eds.) Collapsing Space and Time. London: Harper-Collins, 49-81.
Markoff, 1 1999. Not a great equalizer after all ? On the Web, as elsewhere, popularity is
self-reinforcing. The New York Times (Monday June 21, C4).
Miller, H.l 1993. Consumer search and retail analysis. Journal ofRetailing, 69:160-92.
Miller, H.l 1999. Measuring space-time accessibility benefits within transportation net-
works: Basic theory and computational procedures. Geographical Analysis, 31:187-212.
MitchelI, W.l 1995. City of Bits: Space, Place and the Infobahn. Cambridge MA: MIT
Press.
146 M. Batty and H. J. Miller

Muller, J-c. 1982. Non-Euc1idean geographie spaces: Mapping functional distances. Geo-
graphical Analysis, 14:189-203.
Negroponte, N. 1995. Being Digital. New York: A. A. Knopf.
Salomon, I. 1986. Telecommunications and travel relationships: A review. Transportation
Research A, 20:223-38.
Shen, Q. 1998. Spatial technologies, accessibility and the social construction of urban
space. Computers, Environment and Urban Systems, 22:447-64.
Shiode, N., and Dodge, M. 1998. Using GIS to analyse the spatial pattern ofthe Internet in
the United Kingdom. A paper presented at the GIS Research UK 6th National Confer-
ence, 31 st March - 2nd April 1998, Edinburgh UK.
Smith, T.E. 1989. Shortest path distances: An axiomatic approach. Geographical Analysis,
21:1-31.
Stewart, J.Q., and Warntz, W. 1958. Physics ofpopulation distribution. Journal 0/ Regional
Science, 1:99-113.
Tobler, W.R. 1976. Spatial interaction patterns. Journal 0/ Environmental Systems, 6:271-
301.
Tobler, W.R., 1978. Migration fields. In Clark, W.A.V. and Moore, E.G. (eds.) Population
Mobility and Residential Change. Northwestern University Studies in Geography Num-
ber 25:215-32.
Tobler, W.R., and Wineburg, S. 1971. A Cappadocian speculation. Nature 231 :39-41.
Watts, D.J., and Strogatz, S.H. 1998. Collective dynamies of 'small world' networks. Na-
ture 393:440-42.
Webber, M.M. 1964. The urban place and the non-place urban realm, in Webber, M.M.,
Dyckman, lW., Foley, D.L., Guttenberg, A.z., Wheaton, W.L.c., and Wurster, C.B.
(eds.) Explorations into Urban Structure. Philadelphia PA: University of Pennsylvania
Press, 79-153.
9 Who's Up? GlobalInterpersonal Temporal
Accessibility

Andrew S. Harveyl and Pani A. Macnab 2

ITime Use Research Program, Department ofEconomics

Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada, B3H 3C3. Email: Andrew.Harvey@stmarys.ca
2 Department ofGeography, Saint Mary's University
Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada, B3H 3C3. Email: Macnab@ns.sympatico.ca

9.1 Introduction

A petroleum executive sitting at her desk in Houston knows when a satellite phone
call might find her chief geologist hard at work in Uzbekistan, but this is nothing
new. Since the end of the World War II, many a British veteran has maintained
scheduled weekly contact with harn radio comrades half-a-day away in Austral-
asia. And long before the Tokyo Stock Exchange operated on a 24-hour cycle,
brokers in New York City knew when to reach colleagues at the office in Japan; if
they weren 't certain, all they had to do was glance up at one of the half dozen or
so clocks mounted on the wall. Even new initiates to the World Wide Web learn
quickly that file transfers can be expedited by downloading from sites in countries
where most of the population lies dormant. Computer-mediated communication
across time zones surely must reach its zenith in emergency tele-medicine:
interactive specialists in Toronto, Paris, and Auckland confer while viewing
digital injuries sent from backpack transmitters by doctors on the ground in war-
tom Bosnia. Fine and weil, but when might a Japanese child log on in the
classroom to chat with a virtual pen-pal in Canada? Chances are, never. Even in
the near future of affordable webcams, speech recognition, and simultaneous
translation, it will be impossible for students in Halifax to converse with si ster-city
pupils in Hakodate. Why? When Japanese students start school at 9 o'clock in the
morning, it is 10 o'cIock at night on Canada's east coast. Simply put, one city or
the other is always going to be asleep. So obvious, perhaps, are such points that
they have largely escaped the gaze of academic researchers in the social sciences.
The ability of individuals to interact in real-time around the planet by way of the
Internet forms the basis ofthis paper. Beginning with the assumption that the time
of day will always be one of the few things truly separating the world's cultures,
we explore interpersonal accessibility with a particular emphasis on the role of
daily activity patterns. At this early stage in our investigation, we conceptualize a
'personal real-time accessibility index' to measure the potential for direct,
immediate, and responsive face-to-face global remote interaction. Following so me
discussion of research in accessibility and of studies in time use, a case study of
148 A.S. Harvey and P.A. Macnab

of research in accessibility and of studies in time use, a case study of Canada is

presented to illustrate diurnal measures of accessibility across six time zones.

9.2 Interaction and Personal Real-time Accessibility

There has been increasing concern over an impending decline in social interaction.
Several factors continue to stimulate this concern. First is the declining role of the
workplace, at one time, the main nucleus for networking and social mobility in
modern society. Next is the escalating complexity related to the synchronization of
individuals' time budgets. This colonization oftime, as it has come to be known, is
expected to deter social interaction considerably. A future society might be envi-
sioned in which individual units remain connected through cyberspace yet isolated
in time and geographic space. This can be seen as a dangerous trend since social
interaction has been a strategy of individual survival both within and away from
the workplace. In spite of spatial separation, emerging communication technolo-
gies enhance the ability of individuals to share experiences and information. Com-
puters, for example, '... are being used more and more ... for all types of
communication, which traditionally have taken, place face to face' (Batty 1997).
The most timely and meaningful exchanges still require personal accessibility and
direct interaction in real-time. While phone systems and conference calls most
often enable these exchanges, various Internet tools such as 'instant messaging'
are gaining in popularity.l Significant baITiers do, however, still exist to such real-
time sharing of experiences and information at the global level.

Accessibility and Potential

As numerous authors note, the concept of accessibility is easy to use and hard to
define (Pirie 1979). We will not enter that debate in this paper except to indicate
that by accessibility we are interested primarily in access to people (e.g., telephon-
ing someone) and not in access to places (e.g., lunch at an exclusive country club).
Two particular aspects of accessibility that have been identified in the literature
are drawn upon for our explorations: first is the notion of connectivity, and second
the notion of potential (Fellman, Getis, and Getis 1990). The Internet provides
connectivity. What needs to be determined is the potential for individual interac-
tion.
Interpersonal temporal accessibility (IT A) or interpersonal reachability means
an individual is available to interact reciprocally with other individuals in the
normal course of daily activity. In its simplest form, the personal real-time acces-

1 In a discussion of the proliferation of IRC sites (Internet Relay Chat), Rheingold (1993)
characterizes the assembled interlocutors as real-time tribes.
 GlobalInterpersonal Temporal Accessibility 149

sibility index is the population reach (i.e., the effective number of persons reach-
able) from a given location at any given time. Extensions could be the role group
(e.g., worker, student, other) and possibly the nature ofthe contact. The index var-
ies both spatially and temporally. The potential for IT A in so me locations greatly
exceeds the potential in other locations. For any given location, potential will vary
over the diurnal cycle as distant locations and peoples become more or less acces-
sible.
In its simplest form, the ITA index at any hour ofthe day can be given as:

24
IA="'a*u*P
L..J } } } (9.1)
j=1

Where:

JA = index of interpersonal accessibility measured in persons

P = population
u = capability factor (proportion ofpersons using the Internet)
a= coupling factor (proportion ofthe population awake and alone)
j = time zone (j=1..24)

Hence, the total potential population reach from a given time zone is the sum of
the number of persons available for interaction in all of the time zones. This
measure shows only how many individuals can be contacted with no indication of
the duration of time they are available for communication. The total time avail-
ability can be caJculated as the duration (d) oftime persons are alone and awake:

IATj = Laj*uJ*~*dj (9.2)

Where:

JAT = index of interpersonal accessibility measured in terms of time

d = average duration of time alone per person

Personal Accessibility

Activities are undertaken within an objective and subjective context. Objectively

they occur at a location, both in time and over time and in the presence or absence
of other individuals. These spheres are manifest in activity settings (Harvey 1982).
Both space (location) and time are themselves multi-faceted. On one hand, fixed
coordinates immutably define space. On the other hand, built space is defined
genericallyas structures or activities (e.g., horne and work).
150 A.S. Harvey and P.A. Macnab

Giddens (1990) identifies two types of social interaction: (1) face-to-face and,
(2) remote. Both transport and communications mediate the latter, identified as
time-space distanciation. Since the rapid diffusion of information technology has
considerably diminished the friction of distance as an impediment to interaction
(Graham and Marvin 1996, Cairncross 1995), the present investigation will focus
on the role played by communication. In Janelle's (1995) view, communication
can require temporal coincidence, or not, and spatial coincidence, or not. Various
possibilities are shown in Iable 9.1.

Table 9.1. Spatial and temporal constraints on communication systems

Spatial coincidence of communicating parties
required
Yes No

Temporal Face-to-face meeting A Picture phone B

Phone-
Yes (wire/celllsatellite)
coincidence Teleconference
(audio or audio-visual)
Radio - CBIHAMNHF
of Net phone
Instant messaging
communicating Cuseeme

parties
No Refrigerator notes C Answering and D
Hospital charts recording machines
required MaillE-mail
Telegrams, telex, fax
Printed publications
Computer conferencing

Source: Adaptedfrom Janelle 1995

Combining the perspectives of Giddens and Janelle provides a useful departure

point for our exploration. Quadrant A in Janelle's typology corresponds with Gid-
den's category offace-to-face communication while quadrants B, C and D parallel
Gidden's notion of distanciated contact. Note, however, that the mo des of com-
munication listed in quadrant Bare significantly different from those in C and D.
Real-time distanciation (B) must be distinguished from delayed distanciation (C
 Globallnterpersonal Temporal Accessibility 151

and D). Real-time distanciation indicates that the means of communication en-
ables an immediate exchange of information. Such an exchange might be thought
of as mediated face-to-face contact. 2 Delayed distanciation involves aseparation
in both time and space. Wehave three meaningful categories with respect to
communication:

(I) Face-to-face contact (A) - spatial and temporal coincidence

(2) Mediated face-to-face contact (B) - temporal coincidence
(3) Mediated distanciation (e & D) - no temporal or spatial coincidence

The remainder of this investigation is concerned with the second category, me-
diated face-to-face interaction. Our focus is communication, rather than transpor-
tation, and temporal constraints, rather than spatial constraints. Temporal
constraints take two forms and the significance of each must be recognized. First,
temporal location determines when activities occur (e.g., travel to work in the
morning). Second, duration determines the amount of time needed (e.g., viewing a
movie requires about two hours). In order for mediated face-to-face contact to take
place, individuals must be free of both constraints; that is, they must be temporally
accessible at the required moment and have sufficient time available to interact
meaningfully with others.

9.3 Determinants of Accessibility

Hägerstrand (1970) posits three sets of constraints that will be drawn upon for our
discussion ofaccessibility: (1) capability, (2) coupling, and (3) authority. Capabil-
ity constraints are imposed by physiology, abilities and access to tools. Coupling
constraints define when, where, and for how long one needs to join with other
individuals. An individual or group imposes authority constraints through control
of a time-space entity. Each constraint plays a role in determining global ITA. The
increasing availability and affordability of computers are enhancing the capability
for global ITA by way of the Internet. Although baITiers have been greatly dimin-
ished, they are far from having been eliminated (Schuler 1996, Salomon 1988).
There is still a need for equipment and software (a vehicle) as weil as an access
point and time (an on-ramp andfuel).

2 In asense, this is analogous to an encounter between a deaf person and a hearing person
where a third party interprets with sign language to facilitate an exchange of information
in the present.
152 A.S. Harvey and P.A. Macnab

Capability Constraints

The ability to communicate randomly via the Internet demands personal and tech-
nological capabilities. Personal capabilities comprise adequate computer skills and
language abilities - possibly foreign languages - while technological capabilities
entail the availability of a computer, communications software, and some kind of
network interface (e.g., modem or Ethernet card). Table 9.2 illustrates these re-
quirements and others with a corresponding measure of constraint for three modes
of communication: text, voice, and full audio-visual. Successive levels of interac-
tion require more elaborate and costly devices (i.e., for voice a microphone is re-
quired, and for video, a camera).3 The degree of constraint varies by device and
mode; for example, the exchange oftext is minimally affected by computer power,
but moderately affected by the need for compatible communications software.
Capability constraints, measured by access to appropriate technology, represent
the initial constraint on accessibility. This is true for two reasons. First, the tech-
nology must be in place for communication to take place. Second, the develop-
ment of personal skills will follow the availability of technology since computing
skills are primarily learned through practice. Hence, the speed with which popula-
tions become potentially accessible depends on the three factors: (l) the speed of
diffusion of the technology, (2) the speed of adoption by individuals, and (3) the
length of the learning curve to bring one online in an active fashion. Understand-
ing each of these factors is in itself a study that we will leave for future explora-
tions.
Language differences remain a significant barrier to real-time interpersonal
communication. Individuals must share a common spoken or written form of lan-
guage if they are to take full advantage of existing communication technologies.
The barrier posed by language will diminish as voice recognition and translation
software improves, but for the present discussion, language abilities are taken to
be aprerequisite for functional communication. 4 Even without considering the
built-in bias towards Roman characters, the dominance ofEnglish language on the
Internet, trailed at some distance by Japanese, German, and Spanish (see Table
9.3), must be regarded as a major constraint to widespread communication. While
there is a strong possibility that the numbers presented in Table 9.3 fail to account
for the use of English by non-native speakers, there can be little doubt that the use
of English by non-anglophones far exceeds the use of foreign languages by native
speakers of English.

3 Combinations of levels exist as weH, e.g., in the burgeoning online adult entertainment
trade, aperformer often responds to customers' typed requests with a one-way video feed.
4 Consider the manner in which various technologies have reduced barriers for persons with
hearing, visual and motor impairments. For example, optical character recognition en-
ables scanned text to be converted and enlarged on the screen or embossed in Braille;
voice generation software reads from computer files; and voice recognition tools capture
lectures in print and word prediction prograrns to reduce keyboarding.
 GlobalInterpersonal Temporal Accessibility 153

Table 9.2. Constraints on random personal real-time Internet accessibility

Constraint Text Voice Video
Capability
Personal
Computer skills medium medium medium
Language medium high medium
Technological
Computer power low medium high
Communications software medium medium high
Network interface (modem) Iow medium high
Camera high
Network connectivity (ISP)
Speed Iow high high
Reliability medium medium medium
Bandwidth Iow medium high
Coupling
Temporal coincidence medium high high
Authority
Access rights Iow low low

Table 9.3. Internet use by language

Language Count
(millions)
English 55.0
Japanese 9.0
German 6.9
Spanish 5.3
French 3.7
Korean 2.1
Italian 1.55
Portuguese 1.2
Mandarin (Simplified Chinese) 0.589
Mandarin (Traditional Chinese) 0.576
Cantonese 0.346
Hebrew 0.300
154 A.S. Harvey and P.A. Macnab

Coupling Constraints

Assuming appropriate technology is in place, ITA requires temporal availability.

Accordingly, coupling constraints center on the temporal coincidence of the com-
municating parties. For interactive communication to take place there must be
temporal coincidence of individuals who are also free to communicate. Such coin-
cidence will be a function of the personal and social times of individuals and will
be manifest in their daily activity patterns. Such patterns can best be explored as
activity settings that encompass one's location, when, for how long and with
whom (Harvey 1982, Harvey 1997). These characteristics represent the major ob-
jective context of an activity and provide a useful framework for examining be-
havior within a time-use structure.
The space where one is situated can be characterized not only by geographic
coordinates, but also land use (e.g., horne, transport, work, shopping, and enter-
tainment). Each venue imposes conditions and/or provides opportunities, thus
promoting or coercing certain behavior (Barker 1951). Hence one can anticipate
individuals will be available for direct interchange at so me places and not at oth-
ers. 5 The differential nature of social contact across differing venues (i.e., social
spaces) has been noted (Harvey et al. 1997). Hence it is necessary to identifY
when and where people are likely to be reachable. The timing and location of so-
cial contact is integrally related to the significance of the contact and can best be
understood in that light.
Drawing on Maslow's (1954) ratings of social welfare, Allardt (1990) identifies
two significant aspects of contact. One is loving, or the individual need for at-
tachment to other people in the immediate neighborhood. Being, the relationships
between the individual, the community at large and the social system, relates to
the need for self-realization in contrast to alienation (Gronmo 1982). Emerging
technology presents individuals with opportunities and threats as they attempt to
achieve these needs.
According to Lewin (1951), behavior will vary depending on who one is with
(i.e., social circle), where they are (i.e., social space) and when they are there (i.e.,
time). To properly understand and measure the impact of social interaction it is
necessary to incorporate all facets of the social environment. Employing time-use
data, Schneider (1972) identifies three major circ1es of social interaction: (1) the
family, (2) the workplace, and (3) the social or recreational circ1e. Each group fills
all the conditions set by Lewin to identifY valid social settings. The social envi-
ronment incorporates Lewin's spheres: people, life space, and time, all of which
are encompassed in activity settings. Time-use studies provide a solid basis for
implementing such a paradigm as noted in Table 9.4.

5 Portable phone systems in all of their forms continue to have an undeniable effect on
when and where people can be reached.
 GlobalInterpersonal Temporal Accessibility 155

Table 9.4. Spheres ofthe social environment

Spheres Lewin Time-use studies
1 Social circles With whom
2 Life space Location
3 Time Time
Source: Harvey et al. 1997

Ideally, one would divide social circles into at least three categories: (1) family,
(2) friends, and (3) other acquaintances. However, existing data and survey limita-
tions require that the social circles be generalized down to a pair. First is the fam-
ily circle, the principal unit of social interaction in society. This circle includes
spouse or partner, children, and any other family member, whether they live in the
household or not. Second is the circle of other acquaintances; any person with
whom individuals interact who is not related by blood or marriage.
Social space, physical surroundings or location can be meaningfully identified
by three main venues. First is horne, the household or place of residence. The sec-
ond encompasses work or education sites, professional associations, and office or
school clubs. Third is community space, composed of social or recreational clubs
(not related to work or schooI), church, community organizations, restaurants,
cafes, and houses of friends and relatives.
Preliminary research has shown that the segregation of social circles is not eas-
ily accomplished. In reality they intermingle, at times becoming the single entity
generally referred to as society (Schneider, 1972; Harvey et al. 1997). Still, with
time-use data it is possible to formulate an operational measure of social contact
for analysis purposes. Three types of social interaction are integrated with social
space in Table 9.5 to create a social environment matrix (Harvey et al. 1997).
Since an individual's availability is a function of both his or her social space and
social circle, the social environment provides a framework for evaluating the
availability of individuals.
In our view time spent awake and alone is the significant factor in individual
accessibility. As Hägerstrand argues,
when an activity has started or a room has become occupied these cells become closed
for some duration of time ... projects looking for the same locations in space and time
have to await their turn or go elsewhere (Hägerstrand 1973, 80).
Individuals will occasionally interrupt conversations or activities to interact with
others, but this is generally viewed as unacceptable; therefore, a primary require-
ment of IT A is being alone. Location must also be considered since the mere act
of being alone will not necessarily guarantee accessibility. Assuming contact over
the Internet, it is reasonable to assurne further that individuals will normally have
access primarily at horne or work. We readily acknowledge airplane modems,
portable e-mail addressing, Internet cafes, public terminals, and community-
oriented networks, but for the present discussion, we shall regard such forms of
156 A.S. Harvey and P.A. Macnab

access as minima1. 6 Hence, for communication to take place, individuals must be

at a location with sufficient technology to satisfy the capability conditions identi-
fied earlier in Section 9.3.

Table 9.5. Social environment

Social Social space
Household Workplace Community Transit
Alone & awake Alone at horne Alone at Alone in Alone in tran-
workplace community sit
With family With family at With family at With family in With family in
horne workplace community transit
With others & With others! With others! With others! With others!
multiple multiple at multiple at multiple in multiple in
horne workplace community transit
Source: Harvey ef al. 1997

Authority Constraints

Authority constraints are less obvious and less amenable to quantification than
those re1ated to capability and coupling. Employer's banning of Internet usage for
personal communication during working hours is a growing example of this type
of authority. Other constraints emanate from religious prohibition and ritual ob-
servance, both of which usurp time available for accessing others. The V -chip,
encryption technology and World Wide Web content filters have all been devel-
oped to limit access to sites and material by specific groups. This rapidly evolving
area requires further consideration and analysis in the context of IT A. 7

6 In a survey conducted more than two years ago, Schuler (1996) uncovered nearly 300
computer systems designed exclusively for community use and hundreds more in the
planning stages. While most community networks offer Internet access through commu-
nity-based computing centers, many are also interested in rearguard technologies such as
universal voice-mail, local news provision, community-based radio stations, and local ca-
ble television. Several federal governments, including Canada's, continue to embrace cuf-
fing edge communication technologies before less advanced forms reach their potential
(e.g., see Information Highway Advisory CounciI1995).
7 For an extended treatment of authority-related issues in computerization, see the collec-
ti on edited by Kling (1996).
 Global Interpersonal Temporal Accessibility 157

9.4 Measurement and the Role of Time-use Data

Capability Measurement

Detailed capability measurement will require considerable data on the availability,

adequacy, and adoption of technology as weil as the skill levels needed for suc-
cessful use. Currently there is extensive interest in quantifYing many factors, but
for the moment, we shall focus on revealed capability as measured in actual Inter-
net usage. A survey conducted in September of 1998 by Neilsen Canada shows
that about twice as many people access the Internet from horne as access it from
the office (26% versus 14% respectively; see Table 9.6 and Figure 9.1). A similar
ratio is apparent in work and community settings: twice as many access the Inter-
net from their place ofemployment as access it through schools and other loca-
tions.

Table 9.6. Location of Internet access in Canada, September 1998

Location Percent using Internet
Horne 26
Work 14
School 6
Other 7
Source: Neilsen Canada 1998

35 % ]

30 %

~ 25 %
S
. Home
~ 20 % i i

~ _ Work
~ 15 % . _O ther I
~
~ 10 %

5%

0%
,$<:-
q.,if' ,y'"
~

Source: Neilsen Canada 1998

Figure 9.1. Location ofCanadian Internet use by region, September 1998.

158 A.S. Harvey and P.A. Macnab

Time-use Data

Time-use studies provide ample evidence of temporal variation in the city's social
geography due to activity patterns and settings (Goodchild and Janelle 1984, Har-
vey et al. 1997, Janelle, Klinkenberg, and Goodchild 1998). While there is an ex-
treme dearth of time-space data, time-diary data do exist for a large and growing
number of countries. Studies typically capture extensive information about what
each participant is doing, where they are, and who they are with. People ac count
for every minute throughout a given recording period, usually 24 or 48 hours.
While most of the existing databases lack detailed geographical coordinates, indi-
viduals can usually be identified by region, state, or province. Time zones, the
geographical characteristic of most relevance for the present undertaking, can be
determined readily from these fields.
Most time-use studies provide some spatial detail of activity and generic loca-
ti on (e.g., horne, workplace, other place, or traveling). Generic locations are a ma-
jor indicator for the type of contact likely to be made with respect to connections
at horne, at work, or in the community. Data drawn from time-use studies, con-
ducted by central statistical offices in Canada, Norway, and Sweden, provide
numbers describing involvement in various social environments. People spend
approximately 950 to 1,000 minutes of the day awake (see Table 9.7). Slightly
over 500 minutes of this time is spent in the household and between 170 and 250
minutes are spent alone in the workplace. Ofthe remaining time, 146 to 186 min-
utes is allotted to activities in the community, while 70 to 80 minutes are spent in
transit.

Table 9.7. Dimensions ofthe social environment

Allocation of time in minutes
Social space
Country Social circle Home Workplace Community Transit Total
Canada Alone 294.9 29.7 32.4 33.0 390.0
(1992) Family 187.9 3.5 49.1 23.4 263.9
Others & multiple 35.9 137.5 104.7 13.7 291.8
Total awake 518.7 170.7 186.2 70.0 945.6
Norway Alone 211.3 71.6 31.8 30.6 345.4
(1990) Family 252.1 6.1 60.2 24.6 343.0
Others & multiple 39.8 128.8 90.4 17.1 276.0
Total awake 503.2 206.5 182.5 72.3 964.5
Sweden Alone 217.3 53.0 27.2 37.7 335.1
(1991) Family 271.3 4.0 22.1 19.9 317.3
Others & multiple 59.8 192.0 96.8 23.3 371.9
Total awake 548.3 249.1 146.1 80.9 1024.4
 Globallnterpersonal Temporal Accessibility 159

Individuals in modern societies of the Northern Hemisphere appear to spend a

significant amount of time alone. The Canadian, Norwegian, and Swedish data
presented in Table 9.7 suggest that 335 to 390 minutes ofthe waking day are spent
in isolation, with the majority of that time (between 211 and 295 minutes) spent in
the household. In other social spaces, people tend not to spend comparable lengths
oftime alone. In contrast, they spend \ittle time alone at the workplace.

9.5 Canada Wakes Up

The extent to which IT A is affected by the diurnal cyc1e is amply illustrated with a
case study of Canada, one of the few countries to span six time zones. The re-
mai nd er of this investigation draws primarily on time-use data collected by Statis-
tics Canada in 1992 during Cyc1e 7 of the General Social Survey Program. Figure
9.2 depicts the provincial boundaries and time zones ofthe country.

Provinces
and
Time Zones
of
Canada

,i ' CO r:"
'. ..

Sl John"s

0?
u (f?
Pacific
Mountain
~
Centra l

Eastern Atlantic

Figure 9.2. Provinces and Time Zones ofCanada

160 A.S. Harvey and P.A. Macnab

When it is 10:00 a.m. in Newfoundland, the easternmost province, it is 9:00 a.m.

in the neighboring provinces of Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, and Prince Edward
Island. 8 At the same moment in British Columbia, the westernmost province, the
clocks will read 5:00 a.m. Reconciling the time of day with time-use data from
Statistics Canada reveals some interesting patterns (see Figure 9.3). For example,
at 10:00 a.m. in Newfoundland, 85 percent ofthe population is awake while at the
same moment in British Columbia, 95 percent of the population is asleep. Mean-
while, in Ontario and Quebec, where it is 8:00 a.m., close to halfthe population is
still in bed. 9
An entirely different pattern is revealed when it is 3:00 p.m. in Newfoundland.
Figure 9.4 shows the social environment of Canadians at that time of day. Only
about five percent of the population is still asleep in British Columbia where it is
10:00 a.m. and approximately 25 to 30 percent of Canadians are accessible either
at horne or work. Table 9.8 presents the numbers from Figure 9.4 in tabular form.

100

90

80

70
Soclal Environment

60
~ • (xh«• • (X1"!er

c:
0 . . (Xh« • •Work
50

,---
p
ro
"5
Cl.
0 40
.!.! .! (Xhef • • Homo
n.
AIone.T'.....
JO

20

10 AIone,Home

Timezones

Figure 9.3. Social environment across Canada at 10:00 a.m. Newfoundland time.

8 Liberty has been taken in the example by treating Newfoundland as if there was a full
hour difference from the Atlantic time zone when the difference is only a half-hour.
9 The totals depicted here are raw percentages. In actual numbers of people, 50 percent of
the eight million Ontarians represents a far greater population than 95 percent of the one
million Newfoundlanders.
 GlobalInterpersonal Temporal Accessibility 161

100

00

80

70
Soclal Environment

60 Others, Other
c:
0
~ so
'3
0-
0
a.
40

30

20
A.Ione ,\IVofk

10 AJone,Home

0
Nfld AlIMtIc Eastern Cenlrlll Moo.niW> P""fic

TImezones

Figure 9.4. Social environment across Canada at 3 :00 p.m. Newfoundland time.

As the day progresses, there is a constantly changing pattern of accessibility for

personal interaction. When accessibility decreases in one direction, it opens in
another. For exarnple, by 3:00 p.m. in Toronto, workers to the east, in St. John's,
are inaccessible at the office, as most have finished their working day. To the
west, however, Torontonians will reach a growing number of workers in Vancou-
ver where it is only 12:00 p.m. This gives rise to an accessibility topography
shaped by the location ofthe population and the attendant behavior patterns. From
Table 9.9, access to Canadians from Newfoundland is calculated for three differ-
ent times. Expressed as persons accessible, the Canadian IT A for Newfoundland
ranges from l.l4 million at 8:30 a.m. to 1.48 million at 2:30 p.m., and to l.21 mil-
lion at 7:30 p.m. These numbers are then adjusted to the Internet-usage statistics
from Section 9.4 and presented in Figure 9.5.
Many have argued that spatial data are best represented with maps. Graphs, ta-
bles, and matrices like those demonstrated here provide a familiar if not cumber-
some way of representing spatial-temporal patterns. Time is less amenable to
mapping than space, particularly given present methods and software tools, but the
potential has attracted the attention of geographers, albeit with a sizable emphasis
on such tangibles as weather modeling, ozone depletion, disease spread, shore line
erosion, and deforestation (e.g., see Egenhofer and Golledge 1998, Vasiliev 1996,
MacEachren 1995, Langran 1992). Urban settlements and activity patterns (e.g.,
J anelle, Klinkenberg, and Goodchild 1998, Batty 1996, Janelle 1995) and Internet
162 A.S. Harvey and P.A. Macnab

trafik monitoring (e.g., Batty 1997, Jiang and Ormeling 1997, Dodge 1996) are
two areas in which the mapping oftime has been applied extensively.

--
160000u

~ 120000u
~ - r---
~ 80000n. r---
0
"iii
III - r---
c
0 r---
~ 40000LT
&. - '---

9:00am 3:00pm 7:00pm

•
Time of day in Newfoundland
Other Work Home
D
Figure 9.5. Canadian ITA adjusted to Internet usage showing Internet-accessible Canadians
at selected times far Newfoundland.

Spatial changes over time are weil represented on maps, but what about time
changes over space? How often has a phone book been opened to check interna-
tional time zones on the long-distance pages?IO Classic representations, typified by
static maps and textual descriptors, have been augmented in recent years by a
range of software and online conversion tools (e.g., CLOX World Time Zone

10 Say I wish to call a cousin in New Zealand and the phone book teils me that her country
is Atlantic Standard Time plus 14 hours. That means ifit's 8 o'clock in the evening here,
it's 10 o'clock in the morning there -- dam, she's already left for work!
 Globallnterpersonal Temporal Accessibility 163

Table 9.8. Sodal environment across Canada, 3:00 p.m. Newfoundland time
TIMEZONES
Nfld. Atlantic Eastern Central Mountain Pacific Total
3:00 2:00 1:00 12:00 11:00 10:00
Sieeping Count 10218 43656 297772 19788 107016 130320 608770
Row% 1.7 7.2 48.9 3.3 17.6 21.4 100.0
Col% 2.3 3.2 2.2 2.4 4.0 5.0 2.9
% Total .0 .2 1.4 .1 .5 .6 2.9
Alone, Count 95865 329778 2989528 151224 584226 651540 4802161
Horne Row% 2.0 6.9 62.3 3.1 12.2 13.6 100.0
Col% 21.7 23.9 22.4 18.0 21.8 25.1 22.6
% Total .5 1.5 14.0 .7 2.7 3.1 22.6
Alone, Count 10868 50770 668205 17781 114694 125613 987931
Work Row% 1.1 5.1 67.6 1.8 11.6 12.7 100.0
Col% 2.5 3.7 5.0 2.1 4.3 4.8 4.6
% Total .1 .2 3.1 .1 .5 .6 4.6
Alone, Count 19902 56558 733251 27372 96565 124243 1057891
Comm. Row% 1.9 5.3 69.3 2.6 9.1 11.7 100.0
Col% 4.5 4.1 5.5 3.3 3.6 4.8 5.0
% Total .1 .3 3.4 .1 .5 .6 5.0
Alone, Count 18133 55526 692708 43836 94853 94766 999822
Transit Row% 1.8 5.6 69.3 4.4 9.5 9.5 100.0
Col % 4.1 4.0 5.2 5.2 3.5 3.6 4.7
% Total .1 .3 3.3 .2 .4 .4 4.7
Others, Count 88539 204690 1974478 165648 370461 295884 3099700
Horne Row% 2.9 6.6 63.7 5.3 12.0 9.5 100,('"
Col% 20.1 14.9 14.8 19.7 13.8 11.4 14.6%
% Total .4 1.0 9.3 .8 1.7 1.4 14.6%
Others, Count 86194 293240 2813188 203551 729583 660674 4786430
Work Row% 1.8 6.1 58.8 4.3 15.2 13.8 100.0
Col% 19.5 21.3 21.1 24.2 27.3 25.4 22.5
% Total .4 1.4 13.2 1.0 3.4 3.1 22.5
Üthers, Count 111550 343366 3193094 210922 578856 513819 4951607
Other Row% 2.3 6.9 64.5 4.3 11.7 10.4 100.0
Col% 25.3 24.9 23.9 25.1 21.6 19.8 23.3
% Total .5 1.6 15.0 1.0 2.7 2.4 23.3
Total Count 441269 1377584 13362224 840122 26762542596859 21294312
Row% 2.1 6.5 62.8 3.9 12.6 12.2 100.0
Col% 100 100 100 100 100 100 100
% Total 2.1 6.5 62.8 3.9 12.6 12.2 100
Source: Calculatedfrom Statistics Canada, General Social Survey, Cycle 7.
164 A.S. Harvey and P.A. Macnab

Table 9.9. Canadian accessibility at selected Newfoundland times

Time Zone Time Horne Work Other Total
Nfld 8:30 a.m. 34500 1722 713 36935
Atlantic 8:00 a.m. 99545 5482 2181 107208
Eastem 7:00 a.m. 876444 29421 8413 914278
Central 6:00 a.m. 25085 344 271 25700
Mountain 5:00 a.m. 26405 362 285 27053
Pacific 4:00a.m. 27134 1497 0 28631
All Canada 1089113 38827 11864 1139804
Nfld 2:30 p.m. 24251 1480 1355 27087
Atlantic 2:00 p.m. 83425 6916 3852 94193
Eastem 1:00 p.m. 755750 91350 48808 895908
Central 12:00 a.m. 40381 2557 1968 44905
Mountain 11:00 a.m. 164215 17359 7308 188882
Pacific 10:00 a.m. 187714 19487 9637 216838
All Canada 1255736 139149 72928 1467813
Nfld 7:30 p.m. 27514 610 445 28569
Atlantic 7:00 p.m. 85620 1901 1552 89074
Eastem 6:00 p.m. 492622 21622 15067 529311
Central 5:00 p.m. 163336 12446 5586 181368
Mountain 4:00p.m. 171932 13102 5880 190914
Pacific 3:00 p.m. 168127 15091 8612 191830
All Canada 1109151 64772 37142 1211065

Clock, ID LOGIC World Time Zone Clock for Windows). Interactive time zone
converters vary in their utility and mode of global visualization, but generally,
most ofthe packages appear to permit queries such as: ifit is 6:00 p.m. in country
A, what time is it in country B? Some converters are text-based while others per-
mit graphie database queries, a useful function likely inspired by GIS. l1 Figures
9.6 and 9.7 offer preliminary cartographic depictions of IT A in Canada at 8:30
a.m. and 7:30 p.m. Newfoundland time.

11 At least one software package provides a visual indication of who' s awake. The Moon
and Earth Viewer offers a map or image of the world shaded to indicate which countries
are experiencing daylight and which fall under the shadow ofthe moon.
 GlobalInterpersonal Temporal Accessibility 165

Accessibility at 8:30am Newfoundland Time

SO~I Environment (}
Number of People
Alone and Awake
__ Horne
..._-0::::--- 914 ,278
~
. . Other
. . Work a 8~ I:b Q

D~~
_______---;'-- 107 ,208
,.-..::-+--7'-- 25 ,700

Pacific
Mountain
Central Atlantic

Eastem

Figure 9.6. Preliminary cartographic depiction ofITA in Canada, 8:30 a.m., Newfoundland
time
166 A.S. Harvey and P.A. Macnab

SO: I Environment
_ Horne

. . Other
. . Work
~
aa~ ~Q
Q
Accessibility at 7:30pm ewfoundland Time

Number of People
Alone and Awake
.,_-0:::--- 529,311

------+--

D3~
190 ,9 14

........,---IL+- 28,569

Paci fic
Atlantic
Mountain
Central
Eastern

Figure 9.7. Preliminary cartographic depiction ofITA in Canada, 7:30 p.m., Newfoundland
time

9.6 Research Directions

Our preliminary inquiries suggest research needs in five principal areas: (1) inter-
active geographie visualizations, (2) diminishing accessibility as a result of in-
creasing accessibility, (3) Internet-traffic monitoring to compare IT A potential
with real-time communication volumes, (4) expansion of time-use and Internet
surveys to collect detail on the nature and duration of mediated face-to-face inter-
action, and (5) continued exploration around the notion oftemporal regions within
and between the planet's geographie regions.

(1) For geographie visualization, future research could be directed to a number of

enhancements. With so me additional experimenting, it would be possible to
construct an animated sequence using 10-20 minute intervals per frame that
 GlobalInterpersonal Temporal Accessibility 167

would show Canada waking up. The potential for further visualization in-
c1udes several interactive GIS add-ons that would enhance the options de-
scribed above for time-zone converters. What if you wished to determine
where and when the most people might be reached? By extending a time-zone
database to inc1ude diurnal activity patterns at a larger scale (e.g., telephone
area codes or Internet-service providers), one could query the statistically op-
timal time of day for accessibility between two cities. Conversely, one could
determine the location where the maximum number of people could be
reached at a given time. The World Time Zones data set available from ESRI
contains 35 zones at a scale of 1:3 million. Coded to indicate the hours of dif-
ference from Greenwich Mean Time, this coverage might be a useful starting
point. We anticipate and welcome any additional suggestions for GIS treat-
ment of these connections across time and space.

(2) There is a paradox in the trend towards real-time electronic communication:

as people's communication reach expands, their real-time accessibility to
other people decreases. Put another way, the more accessible an individual,
the greater the probability that he or she will be occupied. Consider the net
decrease in accessibility when multiple modes of communication (e.g., phone,
voice mail, pager, e-mail)occupyanindividual.stime. The probability of
catching a person unoccupied diminishes at some functional rate with respect
to the increase in potential contacts. This contrasts sharply with the normal
notion of accessibility, typically framed as public goods (e.g., shopping cen-
ters, stadiums) that can be enjoyed concurrently by many users.

(3) The exploratory calculations presented here offer one possible index of inter-
personal-temporal accessibility. What other measures should be factored in?
The numbers derived for potential accessibility on the Internet across Canada
bear comparison with actual counts and duration volumes of mediated real-
time connections. At present, it is difficult to extract these measures from
electronic-traffic reports; but, in time, such monitoring is expected to become
commonplace. Are the numbers embedded in time-use datasets useful and ac-
curate for predicting accessibility? If so, might call centers, community
groups, fundraisers, NGOs, entertainers, retailers, educators, business inter-
ests, and media outlets around the world be keen to make use of the numbers?

(4) Time-use statistics are time-consuming and expensive to collect. Furthermore,

it may take several cycles before survey designs and sampling strategies shift
to accommodate emerging trends. As recently as the 1996 Canadian Census,
very little was queried as to the online dallying of respondents. Internet sur-
veyors abo und, no doubt spurred on by the dynamic nature of cyberspace, but
numbers to date have proven limited for penetrating analyses of real-time, di-
rect interpersonal connectivity. Clearly there is a need to expand time-use and
Internet surveys to collect detail on the nature and duration of mediated face-
168 A.S. Harvey and P.A. Macnab

to-face interaction. Some effort in these directions might also be extended

data collection and statistical measures related to authority constraints.

(5) In the realm of real-time communications, the fundamental geographical no-

tion of the region is in need of a temporal overhaul. In the past, regions have
been defined by physical measures such as climate, landscape, vegetation, and
wildlife, alongside human determinants such as politics, language, religion,
economics, and ethnicity. In the increasingly homogenous global village,
where culture is being commodified along reflective glass tendrils, perhaps
the 'region' needs to be recast in a temporal framework. To what degree will
traditional east-west channels, like those between the French in Quebec, Viet-
nam, and France give way to north-south alignments more in keeping with the
time of day? Who will be awake and available for face-to-face commentary
when soccer's next World Cup begins, whenever and wherever that should
be?

9.7 Summary

In this paper we discuss preliminary measures of interpersonal-temporal accessi-

bility with a particular emphasis on face-to-face contact mediated by emerging
technologies. Dur investigation centers on the real-time communications potential
associated with Internet connectivity. Although the need for spatial coincidence is
diminishing, temporal coincidence remains aprerequisite for meaningful ex-
change between individuals. Constraints, defined in terms of capability, coupIing,
and authority, help to frame our analysis. Capability relates to the availability and
quality of the technology needed to access the Internet. Coupling relates to the
temporal availability of communicating parties. We introduce data on time zones,
time-use, and Internet use in an effort to determine when people are awake, alone,
and in the vicinity of a computer - at horne, work, or school. Calculations based
on activity patterns and corresponding social environments across Canada enable
us to chart potential accessibility at three points in the day according to New-
foundland time. A second set of calculations incorporates the percentage of Inter-
net use for preliminary measures of Internet accessibility. With some extension,
these analyses could be expanded to encompass time zones around the world. If it
remains true that trust and understanding are most strongly built through real-time
communication, we can expect future alliances to be forged between individuals
living in regions that permit interaction in real-time. Students in Australia and
New Zealand will continue to be the best live English connection for Japanese
students, at least for the foreseeable future.
 Globallnterpersonal Temporal Accessibility 169

Acknowledgements

Staff ofthe Time Use Research Center at Saint Mary's University assisted at several stages
during the course of our investigation. We are grateful for the contributions of Jennifer,
Barbara and Wendy.

References
Allardt, E. 1990. Challenges for comparative social research. Acta Sociologica 33(3):183.
Barker, R.G. 1951. One Boy 's Day: A Specimen Record of Behaviour. New York: Harper.
Batty, M. 1996. Visualizing Urban Dynamics. In Longley, P. and Batty, M. (eds.) Spatial
Modelling in a GIS Environment. Cambridge UK: Geoinfonnation International, 297-
320.
Batty, M. 1997. Virtual geography. Future 29(4/5):337-52.
Cairncross, F. 1995. The death of distance: a survey oftelecommunications. The Economist
336(7934):5-28.
Dodge, M. 1996. Mapping the World Wide Web. GIS Europe 5(9):22-4.
Egenhofer, M.J. and Golledge, R.G. (eds.). 1998. Spatial and Temporal Reasoning in Geo-
graphic Information Systems. New York: Oxford University Press.
Fellmann, J., Getis, A and Getis J. 1990. Human Geography, Second Edition. Dubuque IA:
Wm. C. Brown.
Giddens, A. 1990. The Consequences ofModernity. California: Stanford University Press.
Goodchild, M.F. and Janelle, D.G. 1984. The city around the clock: space-time patterns of
urban ecological structure. Environment and Planning A 16:807-20.
Graham, S. and Marvin, S. 1996. Telecommunications and the City: Electronic Spaces,
Urban Places. London: Routledge.
Hägerstrand, T. 1970. What about people in regional science? Papers and Proceedings of
the Regional Science Association, 24:7-24.
Hägerstrand, T. 1973. The domain ofhuman geography. In Chorley, R.J. (ed.) Directions in
Geography. London: ethuen & Co. Ud, 67-87.
Harvey, AS. 1997. From activities to activity settings. In Ettema, D. and Timmennans, H.
(eds.) Activity-based Approaches to Travel Analysis. Tarrytown NY: Pergamon.
Harvey, AS. 1982. Role and context: Shapers ofbehaviour. Studies ofBroadcasting 18:70-
92.
Harvey, AS., Taylor, M.E., Ellis, S. and Aas, D. 1997. 24-Hour Society and Passenger
Travel. Report cmmissioned by Transport Research Centre, Ministry of Transport, Public
Works and Water Management. Rotterdam.
Infonnation Highway Advisory Council. 1995. Access, Affordability and Universal Service
on the Canadian Information Highway. Ottawa: Supply and Services Canada.
Janelle, D.G. 1995. Metropolitan Expansion, Telecommuting, and Transportation. In S.
Hanson, S. (ed.) The Geography of Urban Transportation, Second Edition. New York:
Guilford Press, 407-34.
Janelle, D.G., Klinkenberg, B. and Goodchild, M.F. 1998. The temporal ordering ofurban
space and daily activity patterns for population role groups. Geographical Systems 5: 117-
37.
Jiang, B. and Onneling, F.J. 1997. Cybennap: The map for cyberspace. The Cartographic
Journal 34(2): 111-16.
170 AS. Harvey and P.A Macnab

Kling, R. (ed.). 1996. Computerization and Controversy: Value Conjliets and Social
Choiees. Second Edition. San Diego: Academic Press.
Langran, G. 1992. Time in Geographie Information Systems. Bristol PA: Taylor and Fran-
cis.
Lewin, K. 1951. Field Theory in Social Scienee: Seleeted Theoretieal Papers. New York:
Harper.
Neilsen Canada Ud. Personal communication, 1998.
MacEachren, AM. 1995. How Maps Work: Representation. Visualization and Design. New
York: The Guilford Press.
Maslow, AH. 1954. Motivation and personality. Harper's Psyehologieal Series. New
York: Harper.
Pirie, G.H. 1979. Measuring accessibility: A review and proposal. Environment and Plan-
ning A:ll:299-312.
Rheingold, H. 1993. The Virtual Community: Homesteading on the Eleetronie Frontier.
Reading MA: Addison-Wesley.
Salomon, I. 1988. Geographical variations in telecommunications systems: The implica-
tions for location of activities. Transportation 14:311-27.
Schneider, A 1972. Patterns 0/ Social Interaetion. The Use 0/ Time: Daily Aetivities 0/
Urban and Suburban Populations in Twelve Countries. The Netherlands: Mouton & Co.
Schuler, D. 1996. New Community Networks: Wired/or Change. Reading MA: Addison-
Wesley.
Statistics Canada, General Social Survey, Cycle 7, 1992.
Vasiliev, I. 1996. Design issues to be considered when mapping time. In Wood, C.H. and
Keller, c.P. (eds.) Cartographie Design: Theoretieal and Praetieal Perspeetives. New
York: John Wiley and Sons, 137-46.
10 The Role of the Real City in Cyberspace:
U nderstanding Regional Variations in
Internet Accessibility

Mitchell L. Moss 1 and Anthony M. Townsend 2

1 Taub Research Center, New York University, 4 Washington Square North, New York NY
10003, USA. Email: mitchell.moss@nyu.edu
2 Department of Urban Studies and Planning, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 77
Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge MA 02139, USA. Email: amt@mit.edu

10.1 Introduction

Since 1993, when the first graphical web browser, Mosaic, was released into the
public domain, the Internet has evolved from an obscure academic and military
research network into an international agglomeration of public and private, local
and global telecommunications systems. Much of the academic and popular litera-
ture has emphasized the distance-shrinking implications and placelessness inher-
ent in these rapidly developing networks. However, the relationship between the
physical and political geography of cities and regions and the virtual (or logical)
geography ofthe Internet lacks a strong body of empirical evidence upon which to
base such speculation.
This chapter presents the results of aseries of studies conducted from June 1996
to August 1998. Our research suggests there is a metropolitan dominance of Inter-
net development by a handful of cities and regions. We identifY and describe an
emerging structure of 'virtual' hubs and pathways which are linking a set of major
cities in the United States, suggesting that there is a complex emerging inter-urban
communications network that goes far beyond Castells' (1989) informational
mode of development.
More importantly, we analyze the utility and relevance ofthree measurements of
Internet development for urban planning and policy research. The first measure is
the number of computers connected to the Internet on a full-time basis, based on
data collected by Matrix Information and Demography Services of Austin, Texas.
We find this measure to be of limited usefulness, as it only measures location-
specific hardware installations with little reference to their purpose or function.
The second measurement system we explore is based on the Internet's addressing
scheme, known as the domain name system. Unique to individual organizations
(business, education, non-profit, government), domain names are registered with
InterNIC, an administrative clearinghouse contracted by the National Science
Foundation. Associated with each domain name is a unique billing address, which
172 M.L. Moss and A.M. Townsend

permits the localization of the organization using that name. This is the most in-
formative measure for assessing variations in Internet use across a variety of geo-
graphie units, from states to individual ZIP codes. Finally, we examine the
capacity and topography of nationwide Internet backbone networks that transport
data between metropolitan areas.
Based on these three measurements, we find that a limited number of cities and
metropolitan areas dominate the rapidly emerging telecommunications landscape
of the United States, leading in the development of increasingly sophisticated ap-
plications and technologies. Accessibility to the most highly developed real and
virtual Internet infrastructure is a metropolitan phenomenon, and highly stratified
among regions and cities. Furthermore, we describe each of the three measure-
ments used - host counts, domain counts, and backbone network capacity - and
their unique advantages and disadvantages for research. Successfully applying
them to urban analysis requires not only an understanding of urban and regional
development processes, but also the purpose, design, and ftmction of these com-
plex technical systems.

10.2 Cities, Regions, and Telecommunications

The Internet and other telecommunications advances pose a serious challenge to

the study of urban life. Electronic commerce and the decline of distance-
sensitivity in telecommunications pricing have encouraged speculation that the
dispersion of human settlement is imminent. However, as Peter Hall (1997, 316)
states, 'the urban world of the 1990's ... is a world in which cities deconcentrate
and spread to become complex systems of cities linked together by flows of peo-
pie and information.' Thus, while advanced telecommunications permits the evo-
lution of an increasingly complex urban system with multiple linkages and
hierarchies, place and centrality remain extremely important in the information
economy. Gaspar and Glaeser (1996) present strong evidence that telecommunica-
tions and travel are synergistic, suggesting the intrinsic value of face-to-face inter-
action beyond what can be communicated at a distance. The Internet has the
potential to subsurne other communications media such as telephony, print, televi-
sion and radio, as weil routine activities like shopping, learning, entertaining, and
socializing.
Wehave sought to quantify and localize various measurements of Internet de-
velopment in an effort to understand the relationship of the Internet to urban and
regional development. Hall (1997, 318) asserts that cities' competitiveness in the
global economy 'depends on their capacity to generate, process, and exchange
information'. To address those concerns, our measurements of Internet develop-
ment seek to describe the emerging structure of systems by which cities exchange
information through electronically mediated communications. Just as the Interstate
 The Role ofthe Real City in Cyberspace 173

Highway System transformed urban development in 20th century America, the

Internet will help shape urban activity patterns in the 21 st century.
In the past, researchers have studied the flow of information in colonial Ameri-
can cities through newspapers (Pred 1973), by telephone in the urban complex of
the Northeastern United States (Gottmann 1961), and in the information economy
by means of office buildings and overnight letter delivery (Sui and Wheeler 1993;
Mitchelson and Wheeler 1994). More recently, others have tried to quantify the
informational capacity of cities and regions, identifying clusters of both human
(Nunn and Warren 1997) and physical (Greenstein, Lizardo, and Spiller 1997)
information age capital. However, with the notable exception of Dodge and
Shiode's (2000) recent work on Internet real estate in the United Kingdom and
Murnion's work (see Chapter 12), little research has yet to directly address the
geography ofthe evolving Internet.
There are several reasons why the Internet has eluded urban scholars, at least in
the United States. One is that the telecommunications industry in general, and par-
ticularly the Internet sector, is extremely competitive. Because the Internet ser-
vices sector emerged during aperiod of rapid deregulation in the American
telecommunications industry, it has grown unsupervised by federal regulators, and
there is a lack of systematically gathered data on its operations. While individual
companies may possess substantial information that could be used to advance
scholarly research or public understanding of these new networks, there are few
available soure es of geographie data. Second, the Internet operates primarily over
pre-existing telephone network infrastructure. With the exception of Qwest, Inc. 's
new national fiber optic network, there is little physical construction activity
solely associated with the deployment of new Internet infrastructure. Rather, the
flip of a switch to light a dark strand of glass fiber is all that is required to deploy
new capacity. Compare this to the spread of the cellular telephone network, which
can be measured either visually by counting towers or by consulting the U.S. Fed-
eral Communications Commission's (FCC) extensive public database oftransmis-
sion antennas.
This chapter describes three basic measurements used over a two-year period to
attempt to assess Internet accessibility among cities and metropolitan areas in the
United States. The difficulty of obtaining reliable data at comparable levels of
geographie aggregation limit the usefulness of presenting the results together, fur-
ther highlighting the need for new empirical tools and methods to be developed.
However, we seek to identify methods of measuring Internet development and
diffusion to guide further empirical research in this area, and stimulate debate
about the implications ofthese observations and methods for urban theory.
174 M.L. Moss and A.M. Townsend

10.3 Measuring Regional Variations in Internet Development

The primary question this series of studies seeks to address is which cities and
metropolitan areas exhibit a rapid buildup of Internet-related telecommunications
infrastructure, and secondly, how can we effectively measure the geographie dis-
tribution of the Internet? Measuring this phenomenon proved very difficult. First,
as noted earlier, telecommunications providers have strong incentives to keep data
on their operations closely guarded. Second, from a very early stage in its devel-
opment the Internet was designed to subvert geography by using a packet-
switched message routing system, which operates more like the postal service than
the telephone network. As a result, messages can be rerouted around faulty
switches or stations. Thus, the few aspects of the Internet that can be localized and
measured have only limited relevance to physical geography. Third, each of the
three data sources measured aspects of the Internet that did not always have over-
lapping geography. Finally, we needed to consider what these measurable criteria
could indicate about the level of human activity on the Internet in different cities
and regions and the socioeconomic consequences of these information flows. This
section describes the three measurements we used and the strengths and limita-
tions of each. The final section presents a composite picture of the North Ameri-
can system of cities we have derived from these observations.

Computers Connected to the Internet on a Full-time Basis

Matrix Information and Demography Services of Austin, Texas has measured the
geography of the Internet since the early 1990's, and is considered a leader in ana-
Iyzing what it calls the matrix of inter-connected global computer networks.
MIDS' methods permit the localization oflnternet hosts (computers connected to
the Internet on a full-time basis) to geographie areas as specific as astreet address.
Our study was based on data provided by MIDS for January 1996, and indicated
the number of Internet hosts per county for all 50 states. The data included a sub-
stantial number of manual corrections to the automated survey that generates the
data, based on MIDS' proprietary knowledge of the known geographie location of
large clusters of host computers in corporate research and development centers,
for example.
This measurement was a useful first step towards visualizing the emerging tele-
communications landscape of the United States. As anticipated, Santa Clara
County, California (Silicon Valley) and Middlesex County, Massachusetts (Route
128) were the largest clusters of permanently connected Internet hosts. Table 1
shows the top 25 counties by number of host computers. However, we did not
anticipate the large number of central cities that appear on this list. Furthermore,
12 of the 25 top counties were located within just four metropolitan areas: San
Francisco, Los Angeles, Washington DC, and New York. An asterisk indicates
these twelve counties. While these results confirmed our suspicions regarding the
 The Role ofthe Real City in Cyberspace 175

concentration of high levels of telecommunications activity in a select group of

metropolitan areas, the overwhelming presence of Silicon Valley, Route 128, and
several academic clusters in Michigan forced us to re-evaluate the relevance of
these findings. We believed these high figures to be artifacts ofthese regions' role
as the birthplace of the Internet in academic and industrial settings. Gur interest
thus turned to identifYing locations where a broad-based adoption of these tech-
nologies had rapidly occurred across a wide range of industries and population
groups.

Table 10.1. Top 25 counties by number oflntemet hosts, January 1996

County, State Description Rosts
**Santa Clara, CA Silicon Valley 554,967
Middlesex, MA Route 128 243,765
*Los Angeles, CA Central city 159,944
*New York, NY Central city 146,371
*Fairfax, VA Edge city 131,874
*Orange, CA Edge city 123,685
*San Diego, CA Central city 111,981
Cook, 1L (Chicago) Central city 110,726
Rennepin, MN (Minneapolis) Central city 109,047
*San Mateo, CA Edge city 92,781
Salt Lake, UT Central city 90,693
*Alameda, CA Edge city 89,851
Washtenaw, MI Universities 82,790
King, WA (Seattle) Central city 79,142
Allegheny, PA (Pittsburgh) Central city 64,616
Philadelphia, PA Central city 62,387
Travis, TX (Austin) Central city 62,371
Dallas, TX Central city 61,811
Bay, MI Universities 57,726
*District of Columbia, DC Central city 55,755
*San Francisco, CA Central city 53,183
*Prince George's, MD Edge city 46,450
*Montgomery, MD Edge city 42,156
Mecklenburg, NC (Charlotte) Central city 37,369
Fulton, GA (Atlanta) Central city 34,103
Source: Moss and Townsend 1996
* indicates that county is 10cated within the metropolitan area of New York, Los Angeles,
San Francisco, or Washington DC
176 M.L. Moss and A.M. Townsend

At this point, we encountered the first of many instances in which the techno-
logical realities of the Internet drastically affected the interpretation of our results.
The measurement of host counts was extremely coarse because it failed to differ-
entiate between various types of computer equipment. For example, if a financial
services company in Manhattan uses a highly centralized computer system based
on a mainframe and durnb terminals, this method might only count a single host -
the mainframe being the only machine direcdy connected to the Internet. Con-
versely, a small software company in Silicon Valley that uses a Local Area Net-
work to connect its dozen microcomputers to the Internet individually would have
a much higher host count. In some cases, networked printers might even be
counted by this method. Finally, the increased use of firewalls, computers de-
signed to mediate extern al Internet connections and shield institutional networks
from intruders, excludes a significant number of hosts from detection, especially
those of large corporations. These factors generate significant variations in the
effectiveness of comparing host counts across regions and industrial sectors.
It also seemed counter-intuitive to use a measurement based purelyon the tech-
nical organization of the Internet to infer some understanding of the rate of adop-
tion of these technologies across regions. The nature of the modem American
economy and the production systems of the Internet services industry further
complicates this approach. Many organizations do not physically house their
Internet-accessible information at their physical location, preferring to hire con-
tractors who provide expertise and equipment. While the information-producing
jobs and economic activity associated with a website may take place at a central-
ized office in a dense urban area, it is just as likely that the fruits of this labor are
electronically disseminated from a remote location, which could conceivably be
located anywhere. These limitations in the host count measurement led us to seek
other indicators of Internet use, which proved more useful in understanding the
spread ofthe Internet among cities.

The Location ofOrganizations Using the Internet

Domain names are one of the basic forms of Internet addressing, which map
groups of numeric Internet addresses to intuitive names like nyu.edu or alt.com.
Each domain name is registered with Network Solutions, an organization char-
tered by the National Science Foundation to administer the domain name system.
As Figure 10.1 shows, each name is registered to an individual or organization,
and the publicly available registration re cord contains a billing address for that
entity. From this information, it is possible to localize the location of the entity
that owns that domain name as specifically as the postal code (ZIP) level. This
geographical specificity of the domain name makes it a highly attractive measure
for Internet activity. Network Solutions has enjoyed a monopoly over domain reg-
istrations for the most popular commercial, non-profit, educational, and govern-
ment domains in the United States, leaving only a small portion of the American
Internet beyond the scope of these data.
 The Role ofthe Real City in Cyberspace 177

The strengths of this measurement for urban research stern from its representa-
tion of a social phenomenon, rather than a teehnieal one. Beeause eaeh domain
name roughly eorresponds to a corporate, government, or edueational entity, this
measurement indieates spatial variations in the adoption and use of Internet-based
eommunieations by organizations. Sinee nearly 90 percent of Internet growth over
the period between 1994 and 1997 was from the addition of eommereial domain
names, these results primarily measure the extent to whieh businesses deployed
these new teehnologies. Domain registrations also indieate the date eaeh domain
was first registered, permitting us to identity those regions that had the most rapid
growth in Internet use.

Registrant:

Five Points Internet Solutions (FIVEPOINTS3-00M)

45 Havemeyer St. #2R

Brooklyn, NY 11211

US

Domain Name: FIVEPOINTS.NET

Figure 10.1. A typical domain name registration record

However, the domain measurement is seriously handieapped as weil. First, it

does not take into aeeount an organization's size or its dependenee upon or capac-
ity to generate flows of information over the Internet. There is no praetieal method
for sorting through the hundreds of thousands of reeords and assigning weights to
entities of differing sizes, revenues, or information proeessing and produetion ea-
paeity. As a result, this teehnique weights Mierosoft's immense Internet presenee
little more than the small website maintained by Redmond, Washington's muni ci-
pal government. Also, the geographie data associated with domain registrations do
not always eorrespond to the true physieal loeation of a domain's primary users
(who may be dispersed over multiple cantinents), but rather to an administrative
or MIS headquarlers loeation. For example, while AT&T is headquarlered in New
York City, its domain registration for alt.Gam is in Florida. Furthermore, most of
its data networking operations are eontrolled from a center in the St. Louis, Mis-
souri area. Finally, eompanies are inereasingly registering multiple domain names:
178 M.L. Moss and A.M. Townsend

those of the company's products, or variations upon the company's name. This
practice may be responsible for some distortion in the overall results.
The primary source of data for our research on the geographic distribution of
domain names was Imperative! of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Imperative! sells
mailing lists to direct marketers who offer Internet-related products to the owners
of domain names and maintains a database of currently registered domain names
that can be aggregated by nearly any geographical unit. We analyzed regional
variations in domain name registration at three geographie levels; (I) U.S. Census
regions, (2) 85 major U.S. cities, and (3) postal code areas in New York City
(Moss and Townsend I 997a, 1997b, 1998). Among major U.S. cities, the largest
clusters (Manhattan and San Francisco), were also the most densely networked.
Furthermore, in the 15 cities with the largest number of Internet domains, which
accounted for 12.6 percent of all U.S. domain registrations in April 1994, new
domains were registered faster than other areas. By 1997, these 15 cities ac-
counted for nearly one-fifth (19.7 %) of all U. S. domain registrations. Clearly,
Internet technologies were being more rapidly deployed in major urban areas.
Outside the den se urban areas of the Atlantic, Pacific, and Gulf coasts, only Phoe-
nix and Chicago had a significant number of domains.
We also computed the density of domains with respect to population, or do-
mains per 1000 persons. Domain density was typically highest among cities whose
primary function was as aresort, government, or education center. Nodal cities
also showed high concentrations (Moss and Townsend 1998).
Comparing these results to a limited set of domain counts for approximately a
dozen cities in April 1994 permitted us to track the rate of domain growth over a
3-year period. These cities registered domains far faster than the national average,
adjusted for population. The growth rate of domains between 1994 and 1997 was
linked to a city's relative position in the national urban system, with the advanced
service centers growing most rapidly. This indicates a strong relationship between
information-intensive economic activity and early adoption of the Internet among
businesses. The cities primarily fall into four broad categories of growth rates,
summarized in Table 10.2.

Table 10.2. Trends in growth of domain name registrations, 1994-1997

Description Examples Domain growth rate (Multiple
of national average)
Global information Manhattan (NYC), 6+
centers San Francisco
Mid-sized information Atlanta, Boston, 4-5+
cities Miami, Seattle
Regional centers Denver, Dallas, 2-3+
Phoenix
World cities New Y ork, Los 1-2+
Angeles, Chicago
Based on Moss and Townsend 1998.
 The Role ofthe Real City in Cyberspace 179

The fact that the set of cities most commonly referred to as world eities or
global eities recorded the slowest growth rates among large Internet clusters is
disturbing, for it indicates an averaging function. As our detailed analysis of do-
main registrations in Manhattan indicates, adoption of the Internet is not a wide-
spread phenomenon across urban populations. Rather, it is almost entirely limited
to the central business districts, with moderate adoption rates in the more success-
ful immigrant communities (Moss and Townsend 1997a). The fact that smaller
cities such as Austin or Boston exhibit higher growth rates is most likely due to a
more even spread of technological opportunities among their more homogeneous
populations. On the other hand, world cities appear to be characterized by a digital
elite co-existing with a vast, largely disconnected information ghetto. As one ex-
ample of this disturbing trend, a preliminary survey of domain registrations in the
Los Angeles area indicates a much slower diffusion of Internet technologies
among Spanish-speaking and immigrant communities.
Jed Kolko, a doctoral student at Harvard University, is currently conducting
research that will extend the analysis of domain name registrations to all 285 U. S.
Metropolitan Statistical Areas (MSAs) over a four-year period from 1995-1998.
This work addresses a shortcoming of our research, in that we neglected to explore
Internet adoption and use in suburb an areas surrounding the major cities. In fact,
the bulk of new office space in recent decades has emerged not in the central cities
that we focused upon, but rather in the edge eities that surround them. (Garreau
1991) Some preliminary results, in Table 10.3, show that even where including the
surrounding metropolitan areas there is strong evidence of a select group of cities
that dominate Internet activity.

Table 10.3. Domain name registrations by metropolitan area: January 1998

Consolidated Metropolitan Domains Percent of all
Statistical Area Jan-1998 U.S. domains
NewYork 112,524 8.6
Los Angeles 109,917 8.4
San Francisco/Silicon Valley 89,584 6.8
Washington, DC 43,766 3.3
BostonlRoute 128 41,736 3.2
Chicago 38,447 2.9
Philadelphia 28,693 2.2
Miami 27,993 2.1
Dallas 26,520 2.0
Seattle 25,238 1.9

These 10 Metropolitan Areas 544,418 41.4

Rest ofU.S. 771,393 58.6
Entire U.S. 1,315,811 100.0
Source: Kolko /998
180 M.L. Moss and A.M. Townsend

Once again, the four metropolitan areas that contained the largest clusters of
Internet hosts, and the densest concentrations of domains, also account for the
largest nodes ofInternet activity by this measure.

Internet Backbone Networks

While it was important to identify centers of Internet activity and variations in the
concentration of Internet indicators among American cities, we also need to quan-
tify the flows of information between cities to understand how these networks are
developing within the American urban system. Communications on the Internet is
primarily carried over fiber optic networks, portions of which have been adapted
from their original use (the transmission of voice telephone caIls), although the
first dedicated networks optimized for the TCP/IP protocol are now under con-
struction. Traversing the country along traditional rights-of way, such as railroad
tracks, interstate highways, and even abandoned canals, these networks are the
physical manifestation of the 'information superhighway' . Like the host and do-
main-name measurement, our analysis of the conglomeration of national data net-
works collectively known as the Internet 'backbone' indicates a high degree of
centralization in the deployment and use of Internet technologies.
Again, the technology in question dictated careful interpretation of the results.
While the host count described a physical, real phenomenon (the connection of
computers to the Internet), and the domain count a thoroughly virtual, logical one
(the organization of Internet Protocol addresses into convenient hierarchies), the
measurement of backbone capacity is a hybrid. Although some networks operate
on isolated fiber optic cables, many are merely virtual networks operated over
lines leased from national and regional telephone companies. Often, a backbone
provider' s only capital equipment are the powerful routing computers that manage
the flow of data packets at network junctions (Rickard 1997).
While the geography and topography of these networks has received more atten-
tion from scholars than the identification of nodes of Internet activity, no other
studies have analyzed the aggregate topology and capacity of the major backbone
networks (Moss and Townsend 1998). Using maps and data from Boardwatch
Magazine's Quarterly Directory 01 Internet Service Providers, we compiled a list
ofthe capacity and endpoints of every major backbone link for 29 major backbone
operators in the United States. We estimate that these 29 wholesale providers sup-
ply at least 95 percent of long-haul Internet data transport services in the United
States. Based on the assumption that barriers to backbone accessibility were likely
to be found at the inter-metropolitan, rather than intra-metropolitan level, we fur-
ther aggregated these links by metropolitan area. The existence of networks, such
as Metropolitan Fiber System's Metropolitan Area Ethernets, and the rapid prolif-
eration of the baby BeIls' high-speed regional fiber networks underlies this as-
sumption. This aggregation allowed us to focus on the largest capacity fiber optic
networks, constructed of DS-3 (45 MBps), OC-3 (155 MBps) and OC-12 (622
 The Role ofthe Real City in Cyberspace 181

MBps) technology. One megabit per second (MBps) indicates a data transfer rate
equal to approximately 128 pages of text per second.
The analysis is also confined to direct network connections. Theoretically, any
city on a given network has access to all locations served by all networks. How-
ever, there is significant traffic congestion of data packets at inter-network gate-
ways (bridges), and there are strong indications that providers have established
direct links on the most highly trafficked inter-metropolitan routes. For example,
several providers have established direct links between New York and Was hing-
ton, D.C., even though they already operate a route connecting these two metro-
politan areas through intermediate cities, such as Baltimore, Philadelphia or
Wilmington, Delaware. The San Francisco Bay Area is direct1y linked to almost
every metropolitan area in the United States, although many could presumably
have been served indirectly through another node. These patterns of investment
indicate the superiority of direct connections and their importance to a metropoli-
tan area's ability ofto import and export information via the Internet.
The results of the backbone analysis were the most striking and conclusive of
the three measurements we used. Summarized in Table 10.4, the data show that a
group of seven metropolitan areas (San Francisco/Silicon Valley, Washington,
D.C., Chicago, New York, Dallas, Los Angeles, and Atlanta) form a core group of
urban areas that dominate the Internet in the United States.

Table 10.4. Top 10 metropolitan areas by backbone capacity

Metropolitan area Percent oftotal national Total inter-metropolitan
backbone capacity backbone capacity (in MBps)

San Francisco/Silicon 11.6 7,506

Valley
Washington DC 10.4 7,826
Chicago 9.8 7,663
NewYork 9.7 6,766
Dallas 7.1 5,646
Los Angeles 6.7 5,056
Atlanta 6.6 5,196
DenverCO 3.7 2,901
Seattle WA 2.5 1,972
Houston TX 2.4 1,890
Source: Moss and Townsend 1998

These seven metropolitan areas each have the capacity for over 5,000 megabits
per second (MBps) of Internet data throughput, sufficient to transfer text across
the Internet at a rate of over 640,000 pages per second. No other metropolitan ar-
182 M.L. Moss and A.M. Townsend

eas approach this level of capacity. Denver, ranked eighth, has only 60 percent of
the backbone capacity of seventh-ranked Atlanta. As a result, these seven metro-
politan areas share 62.0 percent of the nation's backbone capacity. The next 14
metropolitan areas together account for an additional 25.5 percent of the nation's
backbone capacity, while the remainder of the United States houses the remaining
12.5 percent. Outside the major metropolitan backbone hubs, communities are
linked to the Internet backbone via less robust data pipelines such as DS-1 lines
(1.5 MBps, also known as T-1), frame relay (0.05 to 0.25 MBps), ISDN (0.125
Mbps), and modem (0.025 to 0.5 MBps) lines, which substantially limits their
ability to move large amounts of information quickly. Many of these technologies,
especially the popular DS-1 lines, have notoriously distance-sensitive price struc-
tures that have severely restricted their proliferation in non-metropolitan areas.
These seven metropolitan Internet hubs also connect directly to a great variety
of other metropolitan areas and cities. The San Francisco Bay Area has the largest
number of external connections, with 153 links to dozens of other metropolitan
areas. Washington, Chicago, and New York have over 100 links maintained by
various network companies to other cities. Dallas, Los Angeles and Atlanta each
have 75 or more direct externailinks. By contrast, the next 14 metropolitan areas
each have 42 or fewer external linkages. The variety of linkages associated with
the top seven metropolitan areas is yet further evidence of their key role as central
switching centers for flows of information on the Internet.
The most striking finding of this analysis is that among the top seven metropoli-
tan areas, the majority ofbackbone capacity was used to link these regions to each
other or to provide service within the region, rather than to connect less important
cities and outlying areas. This aspect of the emerging backbone network merits
further research as it suggests that these metropolitan areas do not serve as con-
duits for a national system of data distribution, but instead have coalesced into a
separate, highly networked urban system containing both the major producers and
most consumers of Internet services. This configuration is very similar to observa-
tions about so-called 'global cities' like New York, London, and Tokyo, which
have become largely disconnected from their national economies while being in-
creasingly integrated with each other.
The backbone analysis was the most complete and accurate ofthese three analy-
ses because the data set involved was more limited and manageable with existing
analytic techniques. However, like the domain and host count measures, it should
serve only as a general indicator of relative differences in magnitude of Internet
accessibility and adoption among cities, regions, and metropolitan areas. Notwith-
standing, the stark difference in backbone capacity between the top seven metro-
politan areas and the rest of the nation was the clearest conclusion drawn from this
series of studies.
 The Role ofthe Real City in Cyberspace 183

10.4 Conclusions

The research on the geography of the Internet summarized in this paper was con-
ducted over a two-year period from 1996 to 1998. Despite substantial difficulty in
obtaining accurate, timely, and comprehensive data sets, our results indicate sev-
eral important trends, as weIl as questions for future research. When compared,
the three sets of data indicate a consistent metropolitan dominance of the Internet
in the United States. This seetion summarizes our collective findings and observa-
tions.
Most significantly, the results of this research demonstrate conclusively that a
select group of metropolitan areas, and in particular their central cities, over-
whelmingly dominate the Internet in the United States. Above and beyond their
status as centers of population and employment, these regions consistently lead the
nation in the magnitude, density, and growth of Internet clusters. This fact calls
into question many assumptions regarding the spatial effects of information tech-
nology and telecommunications, as many influential authors have promulgated a
deterministic view that new technologies will lead to a radical decentralization of
population and economic activity (Gilder 1995, Negroponte 1995, Toftler 1980).
This view is not borne out by our research. The New York, San Francisco, Wash-
ington, and Los Angeles metropolitan areas that are the largest clusters of Internet
activity appear to be employing these technologies to reassert their economic im-
portance in the American urban system. Furthermore, the presence of a set of
smaller, Internet-savvy metropolitan areas, including Austin, Boston, Miami, and
Seattle, suggest that rather than causing decentralization, the Internet may permit
the development of a more complex, networked urban system.
These studies also indicate the lingering importance geographicallocation in de-
termining accessibility to advanced telecommunications services. Cities like At-
lanta, Chicago, and Dallas are extremely important hubs for national Internet
backbone networks out of proportion to their share of other measures of Internet
activity. We infer that their geographie centrality is an important factor in this al-
location of network capacity. As a result, these cities have access to more, faster,
and less expensive Internet infrastructure than cities of comparable size that are
less ideally located. However, the absence of comparable levels of Internet devel-
opment in other centrally located cities, such as Detroit and Philadelphia, lead us
to believe that a certain set of socioeconomic prerequisites influence the allocation
ofthese technologies.
In our effort to measure and describe the emerging telecommunications land-
scape of the United States, we anticipated being able to measure flows of informa-
tion across the Internet to gain a greater understanding of which regions were net
information producers, and which were net information consumers. Abler (1970)
and Mitchelson and Wheeler (1994) used this methodology in the past to deter-
mine the relative position of cities within an urban hierarchy. While we were un-
able to gather such data, future research may benefit from a proposal to integrate
geographie information in the Internet's domain name system. The Request For
184 M.L. Moss and A.M. Townsend

Comment 1976 proposal (RFC 1976), Putting Locations in the Domain Name Sys-
tem, would theoretically permit researchers to measure the flow of information
across monitoring stations along the Internet in real time and to more accurately
determine the location of host computers than is currently possible (Davis 1998).
Perhaps the most important conclusion we have made is that researchers study-
ing the Internet need to be very sensitive to the technical intricacies of the systems
they investigate. The relevance of the host count measurement was seriously un-
dermined by several factors discussed earlier, such as the use of firewalls to mask
corporate networks. Without a clear understanding of exactiy how the Internet is
constructed, we probably would have accepted those results beyond their actual
significance. Furthermore, because much of this infrastructure is actually an array
of intangible data and logical constructs (domains, virtual backbones) or easily
reconfigured electronic equipment (host computers and fiber optic networks),
means it can be reallocated almost instantly in response to market shifts, natural
disasters, etc. By definition, the Internet is highly volatile and in constant flux.
Research runs the risk of being an anachronism before it is ever published. For
cities, this means that unlike the televised urban riots that launched Lyndon John-
son's War on Poverty or the graphie images of Rust Belt cities in decay that
helped put Ronald Reagan in the White House, Internet communities can disap-
pear with the flip of a switch.
Finally, there is a strong need for systematic data gathering on the geography of
Internet development and information flows. The RFC 1976 proposal is a good
candidate, and we hope its key points will be incorporated in the new version of
the basic Internet Protocol, IPv6, now being designed.
One of the many interesting ideas to emerge from the NCGIA Project Varenius
specialist meeting, from which the chapters in this volume are drawn, was the
concept of a federally funded Internet Census. Historically, Congress has often
charged the Census Bureau to conduct exhaustive surveys on the emerging tele-
communications industries. A full twelve pages of the 1852 economic Census
were dedicated to the telegraph (Standage 1998), and two special studies of the
telephone industry in 1902 and 1907 each contained over 500 pages of statistics
about the structure and geography of the fledgling industry. These important
documents were very influential in highlighting the uneven geographie distribu-
tion of telecommunications capabilities and paved the way for the universal ser-
vice provisions that governed most national telecommunications policies for the
remainder ofthe 20 th century.
As this chapter has shown, the Internet in the United States is spreading in a
highly uneven fashion, strongly favoring profitable markets and punishing eco-
nomically distressed cities and remote areas. If the Internet will be the primary
vehicle for commerce and communications over the next 50 years, as many in the
Clinton-Gore Administration believe, accurate data about the location of Internet
infrastructure and users will be essential for making sound policy decisions. Public
officials have chosen to defer to the market in regulating the development of the
Internet, but this research shows that a laissez-faire approach has not led to an
equitable distribution of access and technology among and within cities and met-
 The Role ofthe Real City in Cyberspace 185

ropolitan areas. It follows that further systematic collection of data is necessary to

more precisely determine the cause of these disparities.

References
Abler, R 1970. What makes cities important? Bell Telephone Magazine.
Castells, M. 1989. The Information City: Information Technology, Economic Restructuring,
and the Urban-Regional Process. Cambridge MA: Blackwell.
Davis, C. 1998 RFC 1976 Resources: Putting Locations in the Domain Name System. E1ec-
tronic document [http://www.kei.comlhomepages/ckd/dns-Ioc/]. Viewed 28 July 1998.
Dodge, M. and Shiode, N. 2000. Where on the Earth is the Internet?: An empirical investi-
gation ofthe spatial patterns ofInternet 'real estate' in realtion to geospace in the United
Kingdom. In Wheeler, lO., Aoyama, Y. and Warf, B. (eds.). Cities in the Communica-
tions Age: The Fracturing ofGeographies. New York: Routledge.
Garreau, J. 1991. Edge City: Life on the New Frontier. New York: Doubleday.
Gaspar, land G1aeser, E. 1996. Information technology and the future of cities. National
Bureau ofEconomic Reseach Working Paper, No. 5562. Cambridge MA.
Gilder, G. 1995. Forbes ASAP, 27 February, p.56.
Gottmann, l 1961 Megalopolis. Cambridge MA: MIT Press.
Greenstein, S., Lizardo, M. and Spiller, P. 1997.The evolution of the distribution of ad-
vanced large scale information infrastructure the United States. National Bureau of Eco-
nomic Research Working Paper, No. 5929. Cambridge MA.
Hall, P. 1997. Modeling the post-industrial city. Futures 29: No. 4/5
Kolko, J. 1998. Personal communication. l Kolko can be reached at email:
kolko@nber.org
Matrix Information and Directory Services, Inc. 1996. Matrix Maps Quarterly, No. 303
(January). Austin TX.
Mitchelson, RL., and Wheeler, lO. 1994. The flow of information in agiobai economy:
the role of the American urban system in 1990. Annals of the Association of American
Geographers, 84:87-107.
Moss, M.L. and Townsend, A.M. 1996. Leaders and losers on the Internet. Taub Urban
Research Center, New York University, September
[http://urban.nyu.edu/researchll-and-I/report.html]
Moss, M.L. and Townsend, A.M. 1997a. Manhattan leads the 'net nation. Taub Urban Re-
search Center, New York University, August.
[http://urban.nyu.edu/researchldomains/domains.html]
Moss, M.L. and Townsend, A.M. I 997b. Tracking the 'net: Vsing domain names to meas-
ure the growth ofthe Internet in U.S. cities. Journal ofUrban Technology. 4: No. 3.
Moss, M.L., and Townsend, A.M. 1998. Spatial analysis ofthe Internet in V.S. cities and
states. Paper presented at the Urban Futures - Technological Futures Conference, Dur-
harn UK, 23-25 April. [http://urban.nyu.edu/researchlnewcastle/newcastle.html]
Negroponte, N. 1995. Being Digital. New York: Knopf.
Nunn, S. and Warren, R. 1997. Metropolitan telematics infrastructure and capacity for eco-
nomic development in the information society. Center for Urban Policy and the Envi-
ronment, Indiana University.
Pred, A.R 1973. Urban Growth and the Circulation ofInformation. Cambridge MA: Har-
yard University Press.
186 M.L. Moss and A.M. Townsend

Rickard, J. 1997. The Internet - what is it? Boardwatch Magazine - Internet Service Pro-
viders Quarterly Directory. Littleton CO, Fall.
Standage, T. 1998. The Victorian Internet. New York: Walker and Co.
Sui, D.Z., and Wheeler, J. 1993. The location of office space in the metropolitan service
economy of the United States, 1985-1990, The Professional Geographer 45 :33-43.
Toffler, A. 1980. The Third Wave. New York: William Morrow & Co.
11 Accessibility to Information within the
Internet: How can it be Measured and
Mapped?

Martin Dodge

Centre for Advanced Spatial Analysis, University College London, 1-19 Torrington Place,
Gower Street, London, WClE 6BT, UK. Email: M.Dodge@ucl.ac.uk

11.1 Introduction

One definition of the Internet is ' ... a eolleetion of resourees that ean be reaehed
from those networks' (Krol and Hoffman 1993, 1). This definition provides the
starting point for my eoneeptualization of aeeessibility in the Information Age. I
will examine how one ean begin to measure and visualize the aspeets of aeeessi-
bility to information resourees within the Internet. My diseussion starts with the
assumption that a person has physical aeeess to the Internet, via a networked eom-
puter 1• Onee this 'physieal' eonneetivity has been overeome, how aeeessible are
the information resourees, people, and eleetronie plaees available online? What
are the future aeeessibility issues that need to be eonsidered to realize the full po-
tential of the Internet beyond basic eonneetivity? As the Microsoft mantra says,
where do you want to go today?, so what resourees are aeeessible within the Inter-
net and how do you reaeh them? This is very mueh a concern with individ-
ual accessibility and with developing a behavioral geography for Cyber-
space (Brunn 1998, Kwan 1998).
It is also important to eonsider how these dimensions of aeeessibility ean be
represented, particularly given the abstract nature of information spaces, which
often do not have natural spatial struetures. The online activities of searehing,
browsing and communicating in Cyberspace are ethereal and non-tangible to con-
ventional mapping techniques. Future representations need to be dynamic and
interactive, as weil as being readily available while navigating the Internet (De-
cember 1995, Dodge 1999b).
I will argue that the scope of geographical accessibility needs to be expanded to
encompass notions of information accessibility. The growing importance of the
Internet, and its layered services, for receiving and distributing all manner of in-
formation and for personal interaction, will require us to consider how concepts of

1 This is, of course, a big assumption and one that requires serious investigation; see, for
example, Wresch (1996) and Holdemess (1998).
188 M. Dodge

accessibility are played out within these electronic spaces. Gaining access in a
timely fashion to the right information resource, be it a Web page, an email, a
video clip, achat room, or a particular place in a virtual world, is problematic for a
number of human and technical reasons. The Web may weil facilitate easy access
to vast arrays of information from servers around the world, but this does not
mean one can find useful, current, reliable, and affordable information at the right
time. As Pirolli, Pitkow, and Rao (1996, I) comment, 'The apparent ease with
which users can click from page to page on the World-Wide Web belies the real
difficulty of understanding the what and where of available information'. The
Web is a vast array of information, but the ratio of noise to useful information can
be very high. The problems of information retrieval through searching and brows-
ing this massive space are becoming important for conceptualizing accessibility in
the Information Age. There is an increasing awareness of the problem of informa-
tion overload, with 'a tsunami of data crashing onto the beaches of the civilized
world' (Wurman 1997, 15). Accessibility to too much information is potentially as
significant an issue as accessibility to too little information. Excessive information
impedes its assimilation and therefore does little to improve knowledge and un-
derstanding (Shenk 1997). A great deal of effort is being directed by researchers in
a range of disciplines to cope with the problem of information retrieval and infor-
mation overload through filtering, structuring, analyzing and visualizing informa-
tion to aid the limited human capacity to search for, absorb, and comprehend in-
formation (Berghel 1997, ASIS 1998). Much of this research is relevant to
broadening the scope of geographie accessibility to encompass information spaces
of the global Internet.
In this chapter I discuss how we can develop the theme of informa-
tion accessibility, examining the following topics (1) nature of the dif-
ferent Internet information space, (2) issues of network performance
and tools to try and diagnose problems, (3) the importance of search
engines and the problem of searchability of resources, and (4) accessi-
bility problems caused by the design of information spaces. The issues
of measurement and representation of information accessibility are
highlighted in detail for two particular Internet information spaces; an
empirical investigation of accessibility between Web sites using the
structural information contained in hyperlinks and an examination of
accessibility in a 3d virtual world on the Internet.

11.2 Information Spaces of the Internet

It is important to be aware that the Internet provides users with a number of dis-
tinct services, which are often thought of as different spaces, with differing virtual
landscapes. In particular, these different spaces support different types of informa-
tion exchange, degrees of synchronicity, and levels of social interaction. There-
 Accessibility to Information within the Internet 189

fore, they are likely to require different measures of accessibility and forms of
graphie representation to appropriately model their true nature. At a fundamental
level, the different information spaces are caused by the different network proto-
cols used by software applications to communicate over the Internet, which give
rise to the different forms and functions apparent to the end-user. Figure 11.1
shows a sketch map produced by John December, showing the principal informa-
tion spaces and some of the connections between them (December 1995).

------
CyberMap Landmarks 03 DK \994
. . Searcher or 'nd.~
_ orLlnk
Sub)ectTree
qjII Root LI.t

Figure 11.1. Information spaces of the Internet - circa 1994. Reproduced with permission
from John December (1995).

December's map provides a good way of conceptualizing the different informa-

tion spaces of the Internet as distinct and self-contained domains, but with fluid,
complex boundaries and many interconnections and overlaps among them. The
map was drawn at the end of 1994 and the nature of the Internet has changed
markedly since then, with certain spaces dying off as they fall out of favor with
users (WAlS and Gopher) and the inexorable and exponential growth of Web
space. For many end-users the Web, seen through the browser interface, is the key
information space, although email is still the most widely used information space
(ITU 1997, elemente 1998). Other important information spaces within the global
Internet that have evolved and grown since December drew this map include
multi-user chat environments and virtual worlds. Also, the rise of large private
networks and Intranets are creating important information spaces, but they are
190 M. Dodge

largely unseen from the outside and so are difficult to quantify and map. More
recent work on conceptualizing the form and structure of different information
spaces includes Michael Batty's (1997) examination of Virtual Geography, Paul
Adams's (1998) discussion on Network Topologies and Virtual Place, Manuel
Castells's (1996) Space 01 Flows, and Brian Gaines's research on the human-
factors oflnternet information spaces (Gaines, Chen, and Shaw 1997).

11.3 Issues in Information Accessibility

There are a number of important issues that need to be factored into future com-
prehensive models of accessibility to information in networked space. I will dis-
cuss the following four issues:

• network performance,
• size of the information spaces,
• information findability and persistence, and
• information structure, design and user behavior.

A common joke is that the WWW really stands for the World-Wide Wait be-
cause of the poor and unpredictable performance of the Internet, particularly per-
ceived by the Web user waiting for a page to download. It is often asserted that
'distance is dead' on the Internet because it does not matter where the information
is geographically located in the world that the user is trying to access - it is only a
mouse click away. Instead, what really matters is where the site is located in tem-
poral space. Perceived response time replaces geographic distance as the key vari-
able in access to interactive information spaces like the Web. A slow response
time from a Web site that is physically nearby means that it will be perceived as
being more remote and inaccessible than a fast site that is thousands of miles away
on another continent. Limited human patience with interactive computer interfaces
means that response time is critical and even delays of a few seconds can prove so
frustrating that people simply give up and try to locate an alternative source closer
in temporal space (Nielsen 2000). If network performance degrades below certain
thresholds, so me information spaces on the Internet become effectively infinitely
distant and inaccessible because people will not bother to wait. The delays caused
by network performance also have financial implications for those people paying
by the minute for their access to the Internet. The complexity and self-organizing
nature of the underlying Internet infrastructure makes it difficult to determine
where performance problems that effect information accessibility are located in
the network (Huberman and Lukose 1997). Problems can be at any point in the
chain from the user's computer through the network links and nodes, to the target
server. Examining Internet traffic-flows reveals the incredible complexity of
 Accessibility to Infonnation within the Internet 191

routes that data travels through the network, often traversing fifteen or more nodes
and crossing physical infrastructure owned and operated by competing Internet
service providers and telecommunications companies. It is possible to explore
Internet trafiic routing using utilities called traceroutes (Rickard 1996) and it can
be surprising just how complicated things are 'under the hood', so to speak. It is
amazing that the Internet works as well as it does! To take an exarnple, my Web
site is located at a commercial hosting service that is geographically about 1.5
kilometers from my office in University College London (UCL) and yet a trac-
eroute reveals that traffic takes twelve hops (different network nodes) to travel this
distance. Whereas traffic to the mirror site that is physically located in Washing-
ton DC, around 3,700 km from UCL only takes slightly longer, in network terms,
at fourteen hops. For measuring accessibility through the routing topology of the
Internet, these two Web site locations are pretty much equally distant from UCL.
However, there are some interesting variations in response times from these two
sites. The site in London is gene rally equally responsive throughout the day, how-
ever the accessibility response time to the mirror site in Washington depends on
the time of day. The response degrades noticeably in the afternoon when the great
mass of North American Internet users wake up and log on. It is well known that
for European Web surfers, the performance of the Web degrades significantly in
the afternoon when America wakes up. Clearly, measuring accessibility to global
information resources like the Internet and the Web will require the time
dimension to be fully integrated (Harvey and Macnab explore this theme in Chap-
ter 9).
At the network performance level, information accessibility would be measured
by three key parameters, (1) delays, known as network latency, (2) deliverability,
the problem of data being lost in transit and having to be resent, and (3) availabil-
ity of the network and servers, assessed by the amount of down-time. Much of the
research into the performance of Internet infrastructure is highly technical (e.g.,
Paxson 1997), however there is some research particularly relevant to the issue of
geographical accessibility. This inc1udes the work of John Quarterman who under-
takes real-time monitoring of Internet performance by ca\culating latencies to sev-
eral thousand sampie nodes in the global Internet from his headquarters in Texas
(Quarterman, Smoot, and Gretchen 1994, Quarterman 1997). The results are pre-
sented as animated maps that he terms Internet Weather Reports (lWR). Figure
11.2 shows one ofthe animation frarnes for California (Quarterman 1997; see also
http://www.mids.org/weather/). Quarterman claims that his analysis shows that
there has been a thirty- percent improvement in mean Internet latencies since he
started monitoring in 1994. There is also a study by Keynote Systems / Board-
watch into Internet backbone performance in the United States. This involves
large-scale testing of the performance of ten different networks from twenty-seven
different sampie points in different cities (Rickard 1997). Shane Murnion is also
undertaking research into the geography of Internet latencies, examining informa-
tion flows from UK academic Web servers to sixty-six countries (Murnion and
Healey 1998; see also Chapter 12). His findings show the existence of a distance-
decay effect in Web server audiences with increasing latency.
192 M. Dodge

M1DS lnternet Weather Repon 1999 Au, 26 Csliforn ia

mice; ,... C;OU.llt

5,000 ).< 64
3,000 ,.. 32
2,000 ).< 16
1,000 02:00AM ).< 8
500 PWT 4
300
200
100 8~
llllCnc:id doma.i.o~

Q:,p,7i,p:.(c) 1994
+10612..4el1 ·7eC2 t31 +1-512-4/52-01 Z7
".1)$
A....:ia, T,,-.. USA
--
hl1pi l'Mm'.mIdli.OIg mtls:jJ)mkl:li.olg
·010 1:5,000,000 A bel15Cau; EqLS1-ArOlal plOjIIc!Ion 98.0828_04:47 (0 2IJ 0)

Figure 11.2. Internet Weather Report (IWR) for California. Reproduced with permission
from John S. Quartermann, Matrix Information and Directory Services.
http://www.mids.orgl.
 Accessibility to Infonnation within the Internet 193

Another key issue for reconfiguring accessibility measures for the information
age is to develop scaleable models to cope with the size, diversity, and dynamic
nature of Internet information spaces. Pinning down definitive figures on the size
of Internet information spaces from the cyber-hype and Net boosterism can be
difficult, but it is big and, more significantly, it is the fastest growing medium of
information and communication in history (ITU 1997, Clemente 1998)2. Recent
statistics show there were an estimated 36.7 million Internet hosts (Network Wiz-
ards 1998) and approximately 153 million Internet users worldwide (NUA 1999)
in January 1999. For the information resources potentially accessibility on the
Web, estimates from 1998 were that 2.8 million sites contain around 300 million
pages (Bharat and Broder 1998, Lawrence and Giles 1998). More importantly,
these studies reveal how incomplete the databases of even the largest search en-
gines are, only indexing at best a third of the Web. The consequence is that the
Web pages people are seeking may exist, but if they are not in the search engine
indexes they are invisible and, therefore, inaccessible because people will never
find them. Even if they are in the index, they may come so far down the list of
search results returned that most users will never see them, making them effec-
tively inaccessible. This has been termed the searchability factor by Esther Dyson
and is crucial in realistically modeling information accessibility (Dyson 1999).
Search engines have become the key access points - known as portals in the
current terminology - to information spaces on the Internet. They are rich indexes
of socially constructed information and, as such, offer a potentially useful data-
base for geographical research. The potential is beginning to be realized, for ex-
ample in research into the reproduction of the concepts of place onIine (Alderman
and Good 1997, J ackson and Purcell 1997, Alderman 1998, Henkel 1998, N orris
1998).
Another serious issue with modeling information accessibility is the problem of
persistence, or rather lack of it, on the Internet. The Internet and the Web are
changing every day, with information resources, sites, and virtual places appearing
and disappearing. A flick of a switch or a press of a delete key can cause whole
parts of an information space to simply disappear without a trace. Information
structures in Cyberspace are much less permanent than those of the real world.
Can accessibility measures cope with this?
The actual design of the information space can have an impact on its accessibil-
ity (Nielsen 2000). Like real-world cities and buildings, poorly designed Web sites
and pages are rendered inaccessible to certain groups of users. The virtual world
of information certainly suffers from the same degree of bad architecture, as does
the material world (Wurman 1997). We have all seen Web sites with poor choice
of fonts, colors, or frames, for example, which make them practically unusable.
The need for accessible design is especially important for visually impaired people
who surf with text-only software. There was arecent high profile case reported in

2 Although the Internet is a large infonnation space, it is still small in absolute volume
tenns compared to other infonnation domains, particularly broadcast television. See the
paper by Lesk (1998) for a fascinating examination ofthe sizes of different infonnation
domains.
194 M. Dodge

the United Kingdom where the newly re-vamped Web site for Number 10 Down-
ing Street was so badly designed that it was said to be 'staggeringly inaccessible'
(Jellinek 1998). Work is ongoing to improve the physical design and accessibility
of Web sites, coordinated through the Web Accessibility Initiative
(http://www.w3.org/WAII) of the World Wide Web Consortium. However, the
problem is difficult to resolve, as many Web-site designers are keen to use the
very latest technologies, which can easily make their sites inaccessible to many
average users. A survey of UK Web sites in 1997 found that only 30 percent of
pages were completely accessible to all users (Beckett 1997).
To develop new models of infonnation accessibility we need to know about the
content and structure of infonnation spaces and how users behave in them. There
is some useful work trying to answer these questions, but our quantitative knowl-
edge of Cyberspace is far from complete, particularly compared to our knowledge
of real-world spaces (Fagrell and S0rensen 1997). There are several reasons for
this, including the sheer newness of some of the infonnation spaces and their in-
visibility to the conventional monitoring and census-taking methods developed for
the material world (Batty 1990). Governments have not, until very recently any-
way, realized the significance of the infonnation spaces and so have made no at-
tempts to gather statistics on them. However, there are a number of interesting
academic studies that have begun to fill in the blanks. For contents of the Web,
there is the work ofBray (1996), Woodruff, et al. (1996) and Fagrell and S0rensen
(1997). The structure of the infonnation spaces, in particular the Web, has been
examined; see the exemplary work of James E. Pitkow (Pirolli, Pitkow and Rao
1996, Pitkow 1998) and Bray (1996). Researchers are beginning to analyze and
model how users behave in Cyberspace, as seen in the work by Hubennan, et al.
(1998) who have devised a law ofsurfing to describe user behavior.

11.4 Accessibility Between Web Sites

My colleague Naru Shiode and I are researching the spatial structure ofthe Web
by analyzing the hyperlinks between sites (Dodge 1998). The data on how Web
sites are linked together can be used to model accessibility for this particular in-
fonnation space. In a preliminary investigation, we analyzed a smalI, manageable
sub set of the Web, the site of the major universities and colleges in the United
Kingdom, some 122 nodes. We used the AltaVista search engine
(http://www.altavista.com/) to gather statistics on the size of each Web site (de-
fined by the number of pages) and the number of hyper links between them, which
took 14,884 separate queries to AltaVista. The results showed that the 122 sites
contained more than one million Web pages and over 450,000 hyperlinks (al-
though the vast majority were intemallinks within individual sites).
 Accessibility to Infonnation within the Internet 195

20 Links

Distance = 0.05 Distance = 0.1

Figure 11.3. Calculating distance in virtual space.

The data on the hyperlink connectivity between sites were analyzed to deter-
mine the most accessible Web site. To do this, the distance from each university
to every other one was calculated. In the Web, virtual distance was calculated as
inversely proportional to the number of hyperlink connections between two points.
In the example shown in Figure 11.3, site B is much closer in virtual distance to
site A than is C. The Web site that had the lowest average distance, i.e., was clos-
est to all the others, was designated the central, most accessible one.

Short Range Web Sean - , 00 Seal e

Figure 11.4. Web Scan showing the most accessible Web sites of UK universities
(Source: Dodge 1998)
196 M. Dodge

The virtual distances between all 122 sites were measured and stored as a large
graph where the edge lengths were assigned the distance value. The graph was
analyzed to find the shortest-path distance from each university to every other one
using the Dijkstra algorithm. The mean of these shortest-path distances was calcu-
lated for each Web site and then normalized by dividing by the number of Web
pages to take account of the influence of variations in Web-site size. The resulting
ranking showed that the University of Oxford's Web site (http://www.ox.ac.uk)
had the smallest, normalized, mean shortest path distance to all other site; hence, it
was declared as the most accessible Web site in our experiment. The graph ofvir-
tual distance was then used to measure the shortest-path distance from Oxford to
each university and this value was used as a metric of accessibility in Web space
and was called the WebX distance.
To begin to understand the structure and differential accessibility of academic
Web sites, as measured by the WebX distance, it was necessary to visualize the
position of sites in relation to Oxford. To achieve this we used a radar-type map
called a Web Scan. In the Web Scan, Oxford becomes the central point of gravity,
around which planetary Web sites rotate, their orbital distances being equal to
their WebX distance. Figure 11.4 shows a Web Scan for the most accessible Web
sites, those closest to Oxford. What is immediately striking are the two giant sites
very close to the Oxford center point. These are the University of Cambridge
(http://www.cam.ac.uk/) and University of Edinburgh (http://www.ed.ac.uk/).
which have large Web sites and are very closely interconnected. Cambridge has a
WebX distance of 10 and Edinburgh is only slightly further out at 13. Imperial
College (http://www.ic.ac.uk/) comes next with a WebX distance of 26, double
that of the second-place site. Further out from the top three, there is a cluster of
sites around the 40-WebX mark. These are Heriot-Watt University, the universi-
ties of Leeds, Glasgow, Southampton, Queen Mary and Westfield College, and
my own institution - University College London (http://www.ucl.ac.uk/). All
these universities are well connected and accessible in the academic Web. UCL
has a WebX score of 42, placing it in seventh place away from Oxford, a respect-
able place given its historic place in the development of Cyberspace in the United
Kingdom, as it was the first organization in Britain connected to ARPANET, the
Intemet's forerunner, back in 1973 (Salus 1995). There is, then, a slight gap until
the next Web sites are encountered, including large metropolitan universities such
as Birmingham, Liverpool, Bristol, Sheffield, and Manchester, and, as well,
smaller provincial institutions like Y ork and Stirling. Finally, right on the edge of
this scan is the University of Durham (http://www.dur.ac.uk/) with a WebX score
of exactly one hundred. Further results of our preliminary work are presented in
Dodge (1998). We are extending this type ofvirtual-network accessibility analysis
using a larger, more realistic sub set of the World-Wide Web. This type of analysis
of the structure of the Web, I believe, provides a potentially useful avenue for de-
veloping accessibility measures suitable for the Information Age.
 Aeeessibility to Information within the Internet 197

11.5 Accessibility in Virtual Worlds

Virtual worlds are a form of information space on the Internet that provides a
simulated environment in which multiple users can interact with each other in
real-time. Crucially, the users have a bodily representation in the space as an ava-
tar, and the simulated environment is graphically rendered in 2d, 2.5d or full 3d. A
number of virtual worlds from competing companies have emerged on the Internet
since mid-1995 (Rossney 1996, Damer 1998). They are used by many thousands
of people who have constructed new forms of social interaction and a distinct
sense of community and cultural identity to suit the unique characteristics of these
spaces (Rossney 1996, Donath 1997, Schroeder 1997, Damer 1998, Rafae!i, Sud-
weeks and McLaughlin 1998). In many respects the users can be said to inhabit
these worlds and have developed a real sense of place in Cyberspace. Virtual
worlds have pre-defined and programmed geographical dimensions, architectural
structures, and rules of avatar movement, they are truly information spaces (An-
ders 1998). They provide a fascinating new re alm, arguably at the cutting-edge of
the Information Age, in which to explore the meaning of geographical accessibil-
ity. The spatial nature of virtual rea!ity and Internet virtual worlds has, so far, re-
ceived !ittle attention from academic geographers, notable exceptions being Hillis
(1996) and Taylor (1997).

Figure 11.5. Sereen-shot of AlphaWorld's 3d environment and user avatars. Reprodueed

with permission from Circle ofFire Studios, Ine (http://www.aetiveworlds.eoml).
198 M. Dodge

One of the most popular, technologically advanced, and geographically interest-

ing virtual worlds is called Active Worlds, owned by Circle of Fire Studios, Inc
(http://www.activeworlds.coml). Their flagship world is called AlphaWorld and it
is one ofthe oldest (it opened in the summer of 1995) and most developed virtual
worlds on the Internet. Figure 11.5 shows a screen-shot of a typical view of Al-
phaWorld with its realistic 3d environment and users represented by avatars. Re-
search has begun to explore the physical and social geography of AlphaWorld
(Schroeder 1997, Dodge 1999a). This has been made easier because, uniquely, it
has been mapped in remarkable detail and also has a rich recorded history.
Figure 11.6 shows two satellite style maps of the city growing at the center of
AlphaWorld at two snap-shots in time, December 1996 and February 1998 (Vilett
1999). A technical innovation, unique amongst Internet virtual worlds, is that reg-
istered citizens of AlphaWorld are able to claim plots of vacant land and build a
homestead to their own design. This has had profound consequences on the nature
of urban development in the world, facilitating spontaneous and organic growth of
towns and cities. The geographical extent of AlphaW orld is huge, covering some
429,000 km2, larger than California, so it can easily contain the virtual building
boom in which around thirty thousand people built over 27 million objects in the
world (Vevo 1999). Most of the development has taken place in the center of the
world, around what the locals call Ground Zero, located at 0,0 in the Cartesian co-
ordinate space of this world. A sprawling city has grown outwards from Ground
Zero in a totally unplanned way. To give you an idea of the sc ale of the city, the
maps of it (Figure 11.6) cover an area of four hundred square kilometers.
The morphology of urban growth, revealed by the maps, provides useful infor-
mation on the nature of geographical accessibility in this virtual world and on the
impact of changes to the conventional laws of physics for human movement. In
AlphaWorld there are no cars, trains or planes, so people are reliant on teleporta-
tion to travel any distance. Teleportation in AlphaWorld works just like in sci-fi
movies; your avatar is instantaneously transported to the specified location with
the accompaniment of a beaming sound effect! Teleportation has seriously warped
the nature of geographical distance and accessibility as any location in the 429,000
km2 expanse can be reached instantaneously from any other point in the world
with no costs in terms of time or money. Consequently, every point in Alpha-
World is equally accessible. This is truly the death of distance (Couclelis 1996,
Cairncross 1997). Teleportation is available to the user at any time as a menu in
the browser; they just have to type in the co-ordinates of their desired destination
and then they are whisked there in a second.
Distance may be dead in AlphaWorld, but the importance of location is alive
and weil. When people are choosing a location to visit or, more importantly, a
place to build their homestead, they want a good location. A good location for
most AlphaWorld inhabitants is determined by two factors, being as close as pos-
sible to Ground Zero, the center of the world, and having a location with memora-
ble co-ordinates. Human nature, particularly when interacting with computers,
me ans that people tend to select regular numbers for co-ordinate pairs, such as
256, 256, when teleporting. This has given rise to the star-shaped pattern of the
urban growth, with radial spokes of development emanating from the city center
 Accessibility to Information within the Internet 199

along the principal compass axes apparent in Figure 11.6. The spokes are clearly
evident in the December 1996 map, although in the second map, taken just over a
year later, they have become less pronounced as fill-in development has taken
place
The ability to teleport is a powerful feature, but interestingly it was not made
available to users when AlphaW orld was first launched in the summer of 1995. It
has only been progressively introduced for fear of its affects on the world. As the
AlphaWorld newspaper, the New Warld Times, reported in November 1995:

Teleportation! Yes Teleportation! The one most common request of AlphaWorld citi-
zens has been teleportation ... With teleportation more of AlphaWorid will become
readily accessible .... There is still some concern that teleportation will ruin the simu-
lation ofreality in AlphaWorld. In order to keep this simulation within bounds, tele-
portation will be implemented in a somewhat limited fashion. A 'Grand Central Teles-
tation' located at or near Ground Zero will enable citizens to teleport to key locations,
from which they can travel more easily to their destinations of choice. (New Warld
Times, #4, p. 2, http://vrnews.synergycorp.com/nwtJ).

AlphaW orld also warps conventional spatial norms and mIes of physical
movement at a local scale that have an impact on geographical accessibility. Y ou
are able to fly, unaided, above and even below the ground. To achieve this one
simply presses the + and - keys to effortless float up and down. It is also possible
to walk through any walls and structures by holding down the shift key, which has
the effect of making all objects immaterial to your avatar. These two god-like
pawers have had a significant impact on the architectural design of buildings in
AlphaWorld (Damer 1997). Visibility in AlphaWorld is also artificially con-
strained because it is only possible to see a maximum of 120 meters in any direc-
tion. This is due to the limits of graphics hardware and software on pes to render
a larger 3d landscape in real-time. However, the effect on the space is really quite
unnerving, like walking around in an opaque bubble 120 meters across, where
streets and buildings appear to end, with a sharp, artificial looking cut-off line.
This impacts on local accessibility because it is hard to orientate and navigate with
no fixed landmarks and distant vistas.
200 M. Dodge

Figure 11.6. Maps ofthe city at the center of AlphaWorid in December 1996 (top) and
February 1998 (bottom). Reproduced with permission from Vilett (1998).
 Accessibility to Information within the Internet 20 I

11.6 Conclusions

In this paper I have been concerned with the idea of information accessibility
within the virtual spaces of the global Internet. Two particular Internet-based in-
formation spaces, the Web and Virtual Worlds, have been examined as exemplar.
One approach to measuring and mapping the relative accessibility of Web sites is
to use the structure of hyperlinks between them to calculate measures of virtual
distance. In contrast, virtual worlds provide a fascinating challenge to the conven-
tions of geographic accessibility. Although the worlds have a tangible, simulated
geographic environment that has many of the spatial characteristics of the real
world, they can also warp the physical conventions of distance and travel. If, as
some predict, these kinds of shared, 3d environments became prevalent as the next
generation of information interface, then it will be vital to understand how acces-
sibility effects the way people navigate and find places in the virtual worlds (An-
ders 1998).
In the Information Age the importance of access to information spaces, such as
the Web or places in a virtual world, will increasingly take precedence over access
to physical facilities in the real-world for certain important human activities. Be-
ing able to quantity and visualize accessibility to these virtual information spaces
will be an important challenge in extending the notions of geographic accessibility
to encompass Cyberspace.

References
Adams, P. 1998. Network topologies and virtual place. Annals ofthe Association ofAmeri-
can Geographers 88:88-106.
Alderman, D.H. and Good, D.B. 1997. Exploring the virtual South: The idea ofa distinctive
region on 'The Web'. Southeastern Geographer 37:20-45.
Alderman, D.H. 1998. Finding the heart ofDixie in cyberspace: The internet as a new labo-
ratory for cultural geography, paper presented at The Association of American Geogra-
phers 94th Annual Meeting, March, Boston MA.
Anders, P. 1998. Envisioning Cyberspace: Designing 3D Electronic Space. New
York:.McGraw HilI.
ASIS 1998. American Society for Information Science (ASIS) '98 - Information Access in
the Global Information Economy, 24-29 October, Pittsburgh PA.
Batty, M. 1990. Invisible cities, Environment and Planning B: Planning and Design
17: 127-30.
Batty, M. 1997. Virtual geography, Futures 29: 337-52.
Beckett D. 1997. 30% accessible <:> A survey of the UK Wide Web, Proceedings of the
Sixth International WWW Conference, April, Stanford CA.
Berghel H. 1997. Cyberspace 2000: Dealing with information overload, Communications of
the ACM, February 1997 402: 19-24.
Bharat, K. and Broder, A. 1998. A Technique for measuring the relative size and overlap of
Web search engines, Proceedings ofthe Seventh International WWWConference, April,
Brisbane Australia, 379-88.
202 M.Oodge

Bray, T. 1996. Measuring the Web, Computer Networks and ISDN Systems 2:8 7-II, 993-
1005.
Brunn, S.O. 1998. The Internet as 'the new world' of and for geography: speed, structures,
volumes, humility and civility, GeoJournal45: 1-2,5-15.
Cairncross, F. 1997. The Death of Distance: How the Communications Revolution Will
Change Dur Lives. Cambridge MA: Harvard Business School Press.
Castells, M. 1996. The Rise ofthe Network Society, Vol. I of The Information Age: Econ-
omy, Society and Culture. Oxford: Blackwell Publishers.
Clemente, P. 1998. The State ofthe Net: The New Frontier. New York: McGraw-Hill.
Couclelis, H. 1996. The death of distance, Environment and Planning B: Planning and
Design 23: 387-89.
Oamer, B. 1998. Avatar!: Exploring and Building Virtual Worlds on the Internet. Berkeley
CA: Peachpit Press.
Oecember, 1. 1995. A cybermap gazetteer. In Staple, G.C. (ed.) TeleGeography 1995:
Global Communications Traffic Statistics & Commentary. Washington OC: TeleGeogra-
phy Inc., 74-81.
Oodge, M. 1998. Journey to the centre of the Web. In Staple, G.C. (ed.) TeleGeography
1998/99: Global Communications Traffic Statistics & Commentary. Washington OC:
TeleGeography, Inc., 150-54.
Oodge, M. 1999a. Explorations in AlphaWorld: The geography of3d virtual worlds on the
Internet, paper presented at RGS-IBG Annual Conference - Geographies of the Future,
Leicester UK, 4-7 January.
Oodge, M. 1999b. Atlas of Cyberspaces. London: Centre for Advanced Spatial Analysis,
University College London (http://www.cybergeography.org/atlas/).
Oonath, J.S. 1997. Inhabiting the virtual city: The Design ofSocial Environmentsfor Elec-
tronic Communities. PhO thesis, MIT (http://judith.www.media.edu/Thesis/).
Oyson, E. 1999. Search and searchability, The Guardian, Online section, 14 January, 11.
Fagrell, H. and Sorensen, C. 1997. !t's life Jim, but not as we know it!, Proceedings ofthe
WebNet '97 Conference, October, Toronto. (http://ifi.uio.no/iris20/proceedingsI35.htm).
Gaines, B.R., Chen, L.L. and Shaw, L. 1997. Modeling the human factors of scholarly
communities support through the Internet and World Wide Web, Journal ofthe American
Society for Information Science 48:987-1003.
Henkel, T. 1998. An Internet artifact: place-concepts revealed in the virtual world. Paper
presented at the Telecommunications and the City Conference, Athens GA, University of
Georgia, March.
Hillis, K. 1996. A geography of the eye: the technologies of virtual reality. In Shield, R.
(ed.) Cultures of the Internet: Virtual Spaces, Real Histories, Living Bodies London:
Sage Publications, 70-98.
Holderness, M. 1998. Who are the world's information-poor? In Loader, B. (ed.) Cyber-
space Divide: Equality, Agency and Policy in the Information Society. London: Rout-
ledge, 35-56.
Huberman, B.A., Pirolli, P.L.T., Pitkow, 1.E. and Lukose, RJ. 1998. Strong regularities in
World Wide Web surfing. Science 280(3 April):95-7.
Huberman, B.A. and Lukose, R.M. 1997. Social dilemmas and Internet congestion. Science
277 (25 July):535-7.
ITU 1997. Challenges to the Network: Telecommunications and the Internet. Geneva: In-
ternational Telecommunication Union, September.
 Accessibility to Infonnation within the Internet 203

Jackson, M.H. and Purcell, D. 1997. Politics and media richness in the World Wide Web
representation ofthe fonner Yugoslavia. The Geographical Review 87:219-39.
Jellinek, D. 1998. Door policy at Number 10, The Guardian Online section 7 May, 7.
Krol, E. and Hoffman, E. 1993. FYI on 'what is the Internet?' Requestfor Comments: 1462
(May 1993), (ftp://ftp.ripe.netlrfc/rfcI462.txt).
Lawrence, S. and Giles, C.L. 1998. Searching the World Wide Web, Science 280(3
April):98-100.
Lesk, M. 1998. How much infonnation is there in the world? Paper presented at the Time &
Bits: Managing Digital Continuity conference, Getty Infonnation Institute, February, Los
Angeles (http://www.gii.getty.edu/timeandbits/ksg.html).
Murnion, S. and Healey, R.G. 1998. Modelling distance decay etfects in Web server infor-
mation flows, Geographical Analysis 30:285-303.
Network Wizards 1998. Internet Domain Survey
(http://www.nw.comlzone/WWW/top.html).
Nielsen, J. 2000. Designing Web Usability: The Practice of Simplicity. Indianapolis: New
Riders Publishing.
Norris, D.A. 1998. The developing world and the World-Wide Web: Search engine topical
coverage, 1997. Paper presented at The Association of American Geographers 94th An-
nu al Meeting, March, Boston MA.
NUA 1999. How many online? (http://www.nua.ie/surveys/how_manLonline/index.html).
Paxson, V., End-to-end routing behavior in the Internet, IEEE/ACM Transactions on Net-
working, October 19975(5):601-15.
Pirolli, P., Pitkow, J. and Rao, R. 1996, Silk from a sow's ear: extracting usable structures
from the Web, Computer-Human Interaction (CH/'96) Conference, April, Vancouver,
Canada.
Pitkow, J.E. 1998. Summary of WWW characterizations. Paper presented at The Seventh
International World-Wide Web Conference, April, Brisbane, Australia.
Quartennan, J.S., Smoot, C.M. and Gretchen, P. 1994. Internet interaction pinged and
mapped, Proceedings ofthe INET'94 Conference, Internet Society, July, Prague, 522:1-4.
Quartennan, J.S. 1997. The Internet weather report. In Staple, G.C. (ed.) TeleGeography
1997/98: Global Communications Traffic Statistics & Commentary. Washington De:
TeleGeography Inc., 69-72.
Rafaeli, S., Sudweeks, F. and McLaughlin, M. 1998. Network & Netplay: Virtual Groups
on the Internet. Cambridge MA: MIT Press.
Rickard,1. 1996. Mapping the Internet with Traceroute. Boardwatch Magazine 10 (Decem-
ber). (http://boardwatch.internet.comlmag/96/declbwm38.html).
Rickard, J. 1997. Backbone perfonnance measurement, Boardwatch Magazine Directory of
Internet Service Providers 2(Fall):22-31.
Rossney, R. 1996. Metaworlds. Wired 4.06: 140ff.
Salus, P.H. 1995. Casting the Net : From ARPANET to Internet and Beyond ... Addison-
Wesley Publishing Company.
Schroeder, R. 1997. Networked worlds: social aspects of multi-user virtual reality, Socio-
logical Research Online 2:4. (http://www.socresonline.org.uklsocresonline/2/4/5.html).
Shenk, 0.1997. Data Smog: Surviving the Information Glut. San Francisco: Harper.
Taylor, 1. 1997. The emerging geographies of virtual worlds, The Geographical Review
87(2): 172-92.
Vevo, 1999. AlphaWorld Mapper (http://awmap.vevo.coml).
204 M. Dodge

Vilett, R. 1999. AlphaWorld maps (http://www.activeworlds.com/satellite.html).

Woodrutf, A., Aoki, P.M., Brewer, E., Gauthier, P. and Rowe, L.A. 1996. An investigation
documents from the World-Wide Web. Paper presented at the Fifth International World
Wide Web Conference, May, Paris.
Wresch, W. 1996. Disconnected: Haves and Have-Nots in the Information Age. New
Brunswick NJ: Rutgers University Press.
Wurman, R.S. 1997. Information Architects. New York: Graphis Press Corp.
12 Towards Spatial Interaction Models of
Information Flows

Shane Murnion

Department of Geography, University of Portsmouth, Portsmouth, Hampshire POl 3HE,

UK. Email: Murnions@geog.port.ac.uk

12.1 Tbe Impact of E-commerce on Developed and Developing

Economies

Internet related commerce (e-commerce) is going through a phase of rapid growth.

The size of this business sector will undoubtedly have effects on the economies of
many nations, particularly those, which rely heavily on 'invisible earnings' from
the quaternary business sector. However, as yet, the scale of these effects cannot
be predicted since there has been very little in the way of quantitative analysis of
Internet information flows. It is not even possible to answer basic questions about
the Internet, such as how many users there are or where they are located. In the
absence of hard information and useful models, reliance is often placed on the
predictions ofInternet 'gurus' whose estimates often vary considerably.
The rapid growth of electronic commerce will undoubtedly raise concerns about
its potential effects on world economies. At present, the vast majority of informa-
tion services available on the Internet are free. However, the growth in e-
commerce represents a gradual development of charged services, which will inevi-
tably have an effect on national balance of payments. This will be of particular
concern for countries that are net importers of information. This is certainly the
case for the United Kingdom, as illustrated recently by JANET's (The UK aca-
demic Internet network) decision to start charging for access to US WWW infor-
mation sources (JISC 1998). JANET will only be charging for Internet trafik
flows from the United States to the United Kingdom since it is only the inward
information flow that is congested. If an attempt is to be made to determine the
financial effects of e-commerce on international trade, then it shall be necessary to
develop models of information flows, to improve our understanding of how on-
line information is accessed and used, and by whom. Furthermore the relationship
between Internet-developed and Internet-developing nations is itself worthy of
study since there is a strong relationship between Internet development and eco-
nomic development, not only in the telecommunication sector, but in overall eco-
nomic development as weil. Figures 12.1 and 12.2 compare the telecommunica-
tion resourees and GDP of various nations with the speed of the Internet
206 S. Murnion

connection between those nations and the United Kingdom. The strength of the
relationship is both c1ear and striking.

80
I::
•
•
0
70

.. •
~

:,.
'5
c. 60
0
c. •
-
= ,.~ ~
50
....
=
40

,.
VI
CI.)
I::
0
.c 30
•• • •
•• • •
c.
.!!
20
••
.. •"•••• •••
CI.)
I-

•• •
..
ci
z 10
•
0 •
0 1000 2000 3000 4000 5000
Average National Latency from UK

Figure 12.1. Telephone availability for various countries vs. the speed ofthe Internet con-
nection (measured using latency) between those countries and the United Kingdom.

40000.-----------------------------------------,

•
-
30000
• •
..
l'IiI
·l'IiIa ••
•• • •
...
:'
u
CI)
D-
D-
a
20000
.-
CI
••••
#
10000
• • •
• • • •
o~--·-'--·-~r~~4f·~·-·-·~~~~·~·-·--~·~~..~~------~
o 1000 2000 3000 4000 5000
Average National Latencyfrom UK

Figure 12.2. Gross Domestic Product (GDP) for various countries versus speed of the
Internet connections (measured using latency) between those countries and the United
Kingdom.
 Spatial Interaction Models ofInformation Flows 207

Thus there are two major areas where the growth of e-commerce will have a
significant impact - on the developed economies that rely on the quaternary busi-
ness sector and on developing nations. The effects on the first area are difficult to
predict, however some insights into what may happen to developing nations may
be drawn from previous studies in communication geography. Certainly the ef-
fects of the Internet on developing economies is starting to attract the attention of
development consultants (Daly 1999). One study of telecommunication network
growth from urban to rural regions in the United States and elsewhere showed that
businesses based in the developed urban centers tend to dominate over rural-based
business (Abler 1991). This pattern is likely to repeat itself in the relationship be-
tween businesses in the developed and developing regions. A further area of con-
cern for developing regions is the asymmetry of latency space. Previous studies
show that there is a connection between the length of time required to access
Internet information and the amount of information accessed (Murnion and Healey
1998). Consider the hypothetical situation of a region A that has a poor Internet-
connected network exhibiting high latency values. For customers within the region
all Internet services delivered from sites on the local network will appear far away
in latency space. If the network borders a highly developed network from a devel-
oped region B with very low latency values then services based in B will appear to
be almost as close as their own internat services. Furthermore with the enhanced
levels of Internet expertise and business experience available within developed
regions, B's services may weil be superior in quality to A's. As a result customers
will tend to import services from Brather than use their own region's services.
However, for customers within the B region any service originating from A will
seem much farther away in latency space and of poorer quality than their own in-
ternal services and, as such, they are unlikely to use them. Thus it seems that the
inequalities between developed and developing regions will be exacerbated by
Internet commerce. To determine the effects of Internet services and the links be-
tween demand for these services and network quality as it varies regionally, we
require so me method of determining the quality of the network between two re-
mote points. In this chapter we discuss previous attempts at determining the link
between network quality and demand and examine how the methodologies used
may be extended to facilitate the type of analysis required.

12.2 Previous Work

One method that obviously applies in the analysis of Internet information flows
and their effects is that of spatial interaction modelling and indeed this method has
been used in a closely related study of telecom information flows in Europe
(Fischer and GopaI1998). However spatial interaction modelling can only be ap-
plied if space has some discernible effect on the flows studied. From an examina-
ti on of possible metrics and measuring tools, Murnion (2000) suggested that la-
tency, as measured using a utility called ping, might prove suitable in this type of
208 S. Mumion

analysis. Using this method Murnion and Healey (1998) undertook an analysis of
information flowing from UK academic Web servers to the rest ofthe world. The
aim of the study was to use a simple gravity model to determine whether or not
information flows on the Internet were affected by space. The study showed that
audiences accessing information from WWW servers are mostly located near to
those Web servers in latency space. The main result from the analysis was that the
catchment areas for WWW servers are regional in nature rather than global. Fig-
ure 12.3 illustrates the decay curve extracted from the analysis. The result is intui-
tive in that one might expect users would tend to choose a WWW server that can
provide information rapidly over one that provides the same information more
slowly. Although useful, the scope ofthe analysis was limited in some respects. In
this work an attempt is made to expand upon this initial work.

- '~
'Cij
5

120 620 1120 1620 2120 2620 3120 3620

Latency

Figure 12,3. Latency distance decay curve derived in the Mumion and Healey (1998)
study.

12.3 Extending the Information Flow Model to Include Many

Sources and Destinations

The main limitation of the previous study was its scope. Only information flows
from one sector, that of university academic information servers were examined.
This type of service exists on a high-performance homogeneous network (JANET)
and the types of services supplied were also highly homogeneous. One might ex-
pect that the wide variety of commercial services available might exhibit different
modes of behavior. Furthermore the study only covered the reasonably simple
 Spatial Interaction Models ofInformation Flows 209

one-to-many relationship of the information flows from the United Kingdom to

other countries. Of much wider interest would be the flow of information from
many countries to many countries. This type of study would allow the develop-
ment of a full spatial interaction model rather than the simple gravity model used.
By examination of the latency decay curves of different nations, it may be possible
to determine the effectiveness of those nations' information services and obtain
some measure of how weil they may compete in the growing information econ-
omy. However, there are many major methodological obstacles to be overcome.
The main barrier is the current inability to measure the latency between two re-
mote computers. The current suite of measuring tools widely available for moni-
toring network congestion and latency are designed for measuring the latency be-
tween a local computer and a remote computer. This difficulty may explain why
latency studies, which are increasingly common (University of Oregon 1998,
MIDS 1998), tend to simply examine latency variation from a single source to
many destinations. Some method is needed to allow remote measurement of la-
tency. One possibility is the use of triangulation methods. Figure 12.4 illustrates
how triangulation works. If distance measurements are taken by two range-finding
stations R r and R z of a remote object 0, and the locations of R r and R z are known,
then using simple geometry it is possible to ca1culate the position of o. If the
number of range-finding stations is increased it is possible to reduce the error in
defining O's position.

Figure 12.4. Locating a remote object 0 using triangulation.

210 S. Murnion

If this method is transplanted to the Internet, it may be possible to use multiple

computers R 1••R n to measure the latency between these range-finding computers
and a remote computer O. The measurements gathered could be used to calculate
O's position in latency space. If two remote computers are located in this way, it
may be possible to determine the distance between them in latency space. There is
one flaw in this argument however, since the latency measurements taken do not
relate to a straight-line distance, but instead relate to a distance along a network.
This problem will certainly introduce errors in any attempt at positioning in la-
tency space. However, since at this point the interest is in very aggregated flows of
information between nations then the errors resulting may be acceptable. To test
whether or not the method is feasible and to examine the magnitude of the errors
involved, an attempt was made to estimate the latency between a computer in
South Africa and one in Finland, using latency triangulation.
A further point of importance is whether or not the latency is affected by the
direction of information flow. Intuitively one might expect that latency values
would be commutative, Le., that the latency between A and B would be the same
as the latency between B and A. However this may not be the case since different
routes may be traveled in each direction. A study was made of whether or not
latency values commute.

12.4 Does Latency Commute?

Latency values along 10 routes were measured in both directions simultaneously.

The routes were of various lengths, the longest stretching from South Africa to
Australia. The correlation between the latencies in both directions was calculated
and compared with the average latency in both directions for each route.
As can be seen from Figure 12.5, the correlation rises as the length ofthe route
increases. Although one might assurne that this result shows that direction is im-
portant, particularly for short journeys of low latency, it is important to remember
that for most analyses a large number of individual joumeys would be examined
and, thus, it is the average latencies over a particular route that would be consid-
ered. Figure 12.6 shows the average latency in one direction for a particular route
plotted against the average latency in the reverse direction for that route.
The average latencies in each direction for the routes examined above had a
correlation of 0.99. Thus, it can be seen that while direction may be important for
analyses of latencies for low latency routes over a short time-scale, it becomes
increasingly less important for high latency routes or if the results are averaged
overtime.
 Spatial Interaction Models ofInformation Flows 211

1.2

•
c
0.8
• ••
••
0
1a
e.. 0.6
0
(.) •
04
•
0.2
•
0 •
0 200 400 600 800 1000 1200
avg latency

Figure 12.5. Correlation on ten routes between latency in each direction plotted against the
average latency in both directions for that route.

1------- --~~I
I 1200
I~ 1000
I

eI:~ 5
I
800 •
.~~ 600 I
I: ~

S:C
~
400

200 • I

o I

o 200 400-;;~-~0 1000 1200 !

'----~~ ._____ ~vg. laten~~~~ ~ne_~irecti~~_____ J

Figure 12.6. The average latency measured in one direction plotted against the average
latency measured in the reverse direction for 10 separate information flow routes. The solid
line represents a hypothetical perfect correlation.
212 S. Murnion

12.5 Remote Latency Measurement Methodology

To attempt the latency triangulation, six computers were used, located in Santa
Barbara, Portsmouth, Cape Town, Perth, Helsinki, and Tokyo respectively. The
locations are shown in Figure 12.7.

Figure 12.7. The locations ofthe computers used in the Internet triangulation exercise

Figure 12.8. Simultaneous latency measurements taken for the attempted triangulation.
 Spatial Interaction Models of Infonnation Flows 213

The computers at Santa Barbara, Portsmouth, Tokyo, and Perth were used as
latency range-finding stations. Simultaneous latency measurements were taken by
each of these stations to the computers in Cape Town and Helsinki as shown in
Figure 12.8.
As each of these latency measurements was gathered, the true latency between
the computer in Cape Town and the computer at Helsinki was also measured. The
measurements were taken every 15 minutes over aperiod of three days. The com-
plete data set was split into two parts. One third of the cases, randomly chosen,
were used to train a neural network, which attempted to predict the latency be-
tween Cape Town and Helsinki from the measurements taken by the triangulation
stations. The actual latency measurements for the training cases were used to de-
termine the error in the neural network training. The details of the creation of the
neural network are not included since the choice of modeling method is unlikely
to critically affect the result. The trained neural network was then used in an at-
tempt to predict the latency between Cape Town and Helsinki for the remaining,
as yet unseen, triangulation measurements. The results of the exercise are given in
the next section.

12.6 Triangulation Results

Figure 12.9 shows the measured latency against predicted latency for the unseen
measurements.

1000

900
~
I:
S 800
j
al 700
Ü

~
0.
600

500

400
400 500 600 700 800 900 1000
Actual latency

Figure 12.9. Latency predicted by the neural network against the actual measured
latency. The solid line represents a perfect result.
214 S. Mumion

Overall, the results are poor though statistically significant, giving an overall R2
of 0.27 on 600 measurements. However it is noticeable that there is one large clus-
ter of data points between 580ms and 610ms that contributes the majority of the
error observed. If the data points between 580ms and 610ms are filtered out then
the R2 value rises to 0.56. Figure 12.10 shows the actuallatency between South
Africa and Finland measured over time.

2500 r---------------------------------------,

2000

~ 1500
c:
GI

j 1000

500

o
Time

Figure 12.10. Latency between Helsinki and Cape Town (The time distance between each
ofthe large peaks is one day).

Examination of Figure 12.10 shows the curious result that the latency values
poody predicted by the neural network represent approximately the baseline
minimum latency values recorded. It may be that the triangulation method is better
at detecting changes in network traffic then in absolute values.

12.7 Discussion

Quantitative analysis of Internet information flows is a very recent research area

and, as shown here, there are many problems in conducting research in this area.
These problems relate mainly to issues of scale and rapid temporal change. Since
this is a new area, and our understanding of the behaviors seen are poor, it is criti-
cal that reliance is placed on the results of empirical testing rather than on intuitive
 Spatial Interaction Models ofInformation Flows 215

assumptions as the commutation results show. The results of this study show that
the triangulation method holds some promise as a potential method for measuring
remote latencies. However the methodology needs further improvement to reduce
the errors in the technique such that it could be used as a practical monitoring tool.
The importance of Internet triangulation goes beyond simply providing a
method of measuring latency. For the method to work, it requires the location in
cyberspace of each of the objects measured. If it is possible to obtain a dataset that
contains the cyberspace location of a large number of objects for which geo-
graphical locations are known, then it may be possible to build a model that can
map between latency space and geographical space. Using such a model, it would
be possible to pinpoint in geographical space the location of a computer connected
to the Internet, simply by triangulating on its IP or Internet address. If this is pos-
sible then it should be feasible to build dynamic maps of Internet usage and activ-
ity, locating users and domains in geographical space. The possibility exists then
of building an Internet census that accurately reflects information use on agiobai
scale.

References
Abler, R.F. 1991. Hardware, software and brainware: mapping and understanding commu-
nication technologies. In Brunn, S.D. and Leinbach, T.R. (eds.) Collapsing Space and
Time: Geographical Aspects ofCommunications and Information London: HarperCollins
Academic.
Daly, lA. 1999. Measuring impacts ofthe Internet in the deve1oping. World. IMP Maga-
zine. http://www.cisp.org/imp/may99/daly/0599daly.htm..
Fischer, M., and Gopal, S. 1998. Artificial neural networks: A new approach to modelling
interregional telecommunication flows. In Haynes, K.E. et al. (eds) Regional Dynamies.
Cheltenham: Edward Elgar, 503-27.
JISC. 1998. Usage-related charges for the JANET network JISC Circular 3/98.
http://wwwjisc.ac.uklpub98/c398.htm.
MIDS. 1998. The Internet Weather Report. http://www.mids.org/weatherl
Murnion, S. 2000.Cyber-spatial analysis: appropriate methods and metrics for a new geog-
raphy. In Openshaw, S. and Abrahart R. (eds.) GeoComputation. The Netherlands:
Balkema Publishers.
Murnion, S., and Healey, R.G. 1998. Modelling distance decay effects in Web server in-
formation flows. Geographical Analysis 30(4):285-303.
University of Oregon. 1998. Internet Weather for News Hosts, http://twin.uoregon.eduliwr
13 Application of a CAD-based Accessibility
Model

Paul C. Adams

Department of Geography, Texas A&M University, College Station TX 77843-3147, USA.

Email: adams@geog.tamu.edu

13.1 Introduction

Geographical understanding of accessibility usually proceeds macroscopically,

from the vantage point of a remote and detached ob server. Total minutes of tele-
phone communication between a set of countries, presented as a network map,
would be one form such knowledge might take. Frequency of flights between a set
of cities would be another. While the macroscopic perspective provides a good
sense of the overall degree of interaction between places and how such interaction
varies spatially, it can ob sc ure the way communication and transportation are in-
corporated in individuallives in real places, and hide much that is of interest from
a cultural, social, or psychological viewpoint. This is perhaps even more true in
the information age than in previous ages.
Time geography's seminal question 'where are the people in regional science'
(Hägerstrand 1970), was a primary initiative in micro-scale geography. This inter-
est in people is relevant today, as is time geography's ensuing focus on activity
and authority patterns in time and space. This emphasis is best understood as a
complement to macro-scale, aggregate approaches rather than as a substitute. We
can ask: 'where are the people in accessibility studies' and, following Janelle
(1973), use the term 'extensibility' to differentiate the focus ofmicro-scale interest
from the macro-scale concerns that dominate studies of accessibility. The two are
so thoroughly intertwined, however, being appearances of a single phenomenon
from two perspectives, that insights into extensibility c1arifY accessibility and vice
versa.
I have shown elsewhere (Adams 1995) that Hägerstrand and the other time-
geographers oddly restricted their view of human activities to the movement of the
body and the range of opportunities that people could encounter through physical
proximity. The problem with this approach is that it reduces people to Ull-
branching line-objects in time-space, whereas people are better understood as
branching structures.
When we think of people not as bodies but as social agents and sensate beings,
we immediately notice that agency and sensation are stretched out through space
in various ways. One can both sense and act through the use of a telephone, which
218 P.C. Adams

is obviously connection to a distant location. Less apparent, such a distant in-

volvement depends on another technology or technique that is far older: language,
a mechanism of spatial and temporal connection that goes beyond physical pres-
ence. If we ask how it is that the language spoken and understood by one person is
the same language spoken and understood by a large number of people living
throughout a region or regions, we arrive at the simple observation that language
is always shared. Through sharing, something that is experienced in diverse places
by multitudes ofpeople (a philosophy, a car model, a movie star) is internalized as
part of a particular individual's mental structure. Intemalization of world as lan-
guage, and extemalization of that world as actions (inciuding language), are the
two manifestations of language as a space-transforming technique that foreshad-
ows later space-transforming technologies. This ubiquitous technique is perhaps
the archetype of all subsequent space-transforming technologies.
The implications for the individual are significant. To live a human life demands
that we relate to others, and by doing so we must communicate, and by communi-
cating we create linkages through time and space. To imagine an individual as
capable of being lifted out of these connections is only natural - since that aware-
ness is indeed part of the everyday sense of self in industrial and postindustrial
society - but it is an illusion. Geographers are favored particularly in their ability
to perceive people in their complex connectedness by grace of training in seeing
spatial connections. The main adaptation that must be made is to see these connec-
tions as part ojpeople rather than between people.
In the information age, it may be that only geographers can give an adequate
account of the individual. With the development of transportation and
communication technologies, as well as the increasingly dispersed production and
investment networks, extensibility becomes dauntingly complex. The amoebic
pseudopods through which people are present to others at a distance become
increasingly important to self (Adams 1995). I may phone across town to ask my
wife to put my umbrella in the car, or to remind her to put sunscreen on my
daughter's ears; I may fax arequest to a colleague to write me a letter ofreference
that will actually reach its destination via e-mail; I may direct a visiting friend to
my house from the airport as he talks via mobile phone from the airplane or rental
car. In all of these cases, my extended agency matters not only to me but to others,
and hence to social organization in general. Although invisible, such extensions
are constitutive of social structure no less than the interactions of co-present
individuals. A fax, phone call, letter, memo, video image, or broadcast voice are
all equally capable of affecting consumption, directing business activities,
perpetuating a romantic involvement, or reinforcing political values. They can all
provide a connection to the past or future, and ultimately help build communities
of various types. A person cut off from a significant number of such connections
would need to undertake a major redirection of his or her life. A person
completely unable to communicate would be in danger of losing touch with
reality, and hence with hirn or herself.
Information Technology (IT) - the technological vortex into which computing
devices, telephones, computers, and a myriad of associated devices are whirling -
appears at the macro-scale to be a global information system. This sense of a
 CAD-based Accessibility Model 219

'given' scale attached to the technology is derived from the rather obvious fact
that the information technologies are capable of supporting international commu-
nications. This scale, once accepted as real, seems all the more ominous since the
condition of glabality is not uniformly accessible. Those most able to use and di-
reet the system are the ones with the most money, education, and political power.
Thus, we see a global system dominated by powerful groups, accessible to power-
ful groups, and potentially destructive of individual agency and freedom (e.g.,
Castells 1996; 1997; 1998; Graham and Marvin 1996; Curry 1995). Without fully
analyzing our perspective, we have automatically applied a macro-scale lens to the
phenomenon. Its implications, political and otherwise, are in fact scale dependent
and look different at other scales.
To understand IT more cIearly, we must incIude individuallives in our analysis,
and particularly the routines people pursue in and through IT. Rather than simply
asking what people can do, we must ask what they da do. A portrait of extensible
individuals, though not self-sufficient, reveals meanings of IT that are missed in
aggregate studies. In particular it reveals what I call the spatial strategy of each
subject. This is a stance that is adopted relative to various geographical scales, a
seeking out of certain scales of involvement through either sensation or agency,
and an avoidance of other scales. Some people adopt spatial strategies that reach
out beyond the locality, towards global economic, political, and cultural systems.
Others seek to strengthen economic, political and cultural ties to locality. Within
this general range of spatial strategies, from globalizing to localizing, there are a
range of sub-strategies, aligned with various business or professional goals, per-
sonal interests, and life histories, attached to various scales of personal extensibil-
ity.

13.2 Social Organization and Scale

In the past decade, political geographers have begun to pay increasing attention to
the social construction of scale. Scale is not, on this account, an inherent quality of
interactions, but rather a social product growing out of the 'scale politics of spati-
ality' (Jonas 1994). A labor struggle, for example, is not local, regional, or na-
tional by its nature but, instead, takes on such scale characteristics through proc-
esses of social contestation. Parties to a conf1ict seek either to expand or reduce
the scale of the conflict, depending on their social status. The expansive or con-
tractive tactics of groups can be predicted on the basis of their situation in the con-
flict, such that movements resisting the dominant authorities will often try to
broaden the scale of social involvement, while authorities will strive to constrain
involvement to their territorial jurisdiction (Adams 1996).
Social conflicts make the constructedness of geographical scale abundantly
clear, but more mundane and everyday social processes also manifest the con-
struction of scale. Robert Sack explores this topic in both Human Territariality
220 P.C. Adams

(1986) and Homo Geographicus (1997). In the more recent work, he argues that
the familiar events of daily Iife, such as cooking a meal for guests or helping a
child with school work, provide opportunities for exploration of meaning, nature,
and social relations, and these in turn involve processes and phenomena at a wide
range of scales. Likewise, Jurgen Habermas argues that communicative action
constantly defines and redefines the 'horizon' of the lifeworld, the range of phe-
nomena involved in a particular situation.

Communicative action relies on a cooperative process of interpretation in which par-

ticipants relate simuItaneously to something in the objective, the social, and the subjec-
tive worlds, even when they thematically stress only one of the three components in
their utterances (Habermas 1987, 120).

An argument, for example, may arise in which one participant justifies an action
as a private choice (bounded) while the other participant criticizes it as a violation
of universal moral principles (unbounded), or one conversant may justity an action
as a response to international social conditions while the other justifies the action
as a response to family problems. So speech constantly reconstructs and problema-
tizes the issue of scale. It is clear that economic relations and political actions do
this as weIl. In fact, all communication does so.
Communication constructs scale in several ways. The two I will explore here are
distant sensation and indirect action. First, sensation is actively extended through
various audio and visual media. I watch a television news feature on the war in
Bosnia or current controversies in the nation's capitol, I read an English novel, or I
listen to a friend in another state who teIls me over the telephone about his new
job. Second, action or agency is extended through institutional frameworks and
media. I order a dozen widgets for my latest professional contract, call my wife to
tell her to buy tomatoes for dinner, or sign a permission slip letting my child go on
a field trip. In these cases, it is virtually assured that agency was guided by sensa-
tion, in the form of viewing apart description in a catalog, exchanging greetings
with my wife, or reading the schedule of the field trip. Less obviously, sensation
implies agency, since sensation is the basis of knowledge, and what we know (or
think we know) affects our actions and the actions of others with whom we com-
municate.
This study applies two different micro-scale lenses to understand personal ex-
tensibility, and more generally, the social construction of scale. Both lenses are
directed towards the lives of five people who live in the Albany, NY metropolitan
area. First, a narrative lens provides a general feel of the subjects' different life-
styles, which range from a quiet retirement to a frenetic schedule juggling several
high-level professional positions. Also included in this narrative are the intersec-
tions of these individuals' life-paths in the experience of one subject who inte-
grates the other four to form a social network. This network is no more important
or real than dozens of others that could be shown involving these persons with
others. It is simply one particular coming-together of people's extended agency
and sensation in an ordinary American city in the 1990s.
 CAD-based Accessibility Model 221

Second, models of the subjects' daily routines are shown. These models are in
fact virtual objects constructed in the abstract representational space of a com-
puter-aided design (CAD) program (see Appendix). Since they are stored as a set
of objects in a database, the models can be rotated and examined from various
angles and can be queried to reveal selected themes. For example, one thematic
selection would show only two-way communications such as telephone, and dis-
regard one-way communication links, such as radio and television; altematively,
one and two-way communications could be shown together but in a way that dif-
ferentiates them by appearance. This extensibility diagram is like a GIS database
in that it has no given appearance, but elements can be selected, oriented, and or-
ganized by the user. Furthermore, like GIS, the representation renders a large
amount of data available for analysis rather than condensing the data into statisti-
cal measures, such as mean and standard deviation, which result in a loss of in-
formation.
The goal of the study is to show a way that emerging technologies can be linked
to individual spatial strategies and interpersonal power relations. The sampie is too
small to provide more than a hint of what one might find with a more satisfactory
sampie. The methodology is entirely new, so it is a pilot study. Even so, it hints at
how social power and extensibility are related. The relationship is not a simple
matter of quantity, with more power implying more extensibility; although the
most powerful subjects appear to maintain economic, political, or social power
through extensibility, we cannot reduce that power to a simple metric, such as
more time communicating with distant places or more frequent connections with
distant places. Power is expressed in very different rhythms of extensibility. Fur-
thermore, the less powerful subjects maintain a high level of involvement with
scales of social integration beyond the locality - state, region, nation, and/or
world. Their ability to act at a distance is limited and directed by others, but they
use media to extend their ability to sense the world in ways that fit in with coher-
ent overall spatial strategies.
The powerless are not simply receivers of distant information. They circulate
perceptions in local social contexts that are drawn from distant origins on the
Web, in newspapers, on the radio, and in books. Although minimally capable of
affecting social processes at these sc al es, they are informed about non-Iocal events
and become primary sources of shared local information regarding non-Iocal
events. If this information is distorted by the news sources, as indeed it must be,
people nonetheless are not passive dupes of the media. l They use media to estab-
lish a certain meaningful relationship to the world, and do so in active ways: com-
bining sources, seeking out information related to interests, mixing news and en-
tertainment, comparing news sources, and sometimes regarding the sources they
depend on with a jaded and skeptical eye (Fiske 1987).

1 I am assuming here that all news is a social construction and therefore perpetuates certain
bias es in the way it constructs world events.
222 P.C. Adams

13.3 Five Daily Time-space Routines

Five subjects were chosen for this study in a non-random way.2 Although too
small a sampie to indicate general patterns, a range of intriguingly different time-
space routines was indicated. This range sufficed to indicate some questions re-
garding the simple assumption of information haves and information have-nots
that has driven other studies of accessibility and IT. In addition, practical aspects
of the representation of extensibility in a CAD-based extensibility diagram could
be explored. Such an approach cannot tell the whole story (even if expanded con-
siderably), but it can help overcome the limitations ofmacro-scale studies.
Diann works in her horne, primarily doing light assembly work for Thomas'
company and caring for her 3-year-old daughter. In her spare time she designs and
creates textile art for sale at a small gallery and invests in commodities. Mr. Wor-
ley, her neighbor, is a retired widower who spends much of his time at horne. He
spends his days reading the newspaper, exercising, taking long walks, and running
errands in his 15-year-old station wagon. Martin Kroopnick is the general manager
of a public radio station with branches throughout New England and upstate New
York, who is also a college professor and the host of a weekly television show.
Thomas owns and manages a small business that designs and produces promo-
tional materials for police departments, primarily a child security kit that helps
parents gather information that will assist police in identifYing a child who is lost.
Lisa is Thomas' secretary; she has a degree in religious studies and is looking for
a job that better uses her skills and contributes more to furthering her social val-
ues. In her spare time she reads esoteric religious texts and does volunteer work
for an environmental organization.
The five people are part of a social network with Diann at the hub. Thomas is
Diann's employer; Lisa is Diann's most common work contact; Martin Kroopnick
is the general manager of Diann's favorite radio station; Mr. Worley and Diann
regularly greet each other when they pass on the sidewalk. The five have obvi-
ously different levels of social power. Martin Kroopnick and Thomas are both, in
different ways, powerful social agents. They both direct the work activities of
dozens of other people and identifY their careers with the achievement of social
power, influence, and success (though the three are mixed in different propor-
tions). They both seem pleased with their career achievements, if also dissatisfied
by some aspects oftheir lives. Diann, Mr. Worley, and Lisa are all near the bottom
of conventional scales of social power. Mr. Worley is marginalized by his age and
his previous employment status, as well as by his comparative lack of education.
Diann and Lisa are professionally marginalized, serving the needs of a business

2 The subjects were all known to the researcher prior to the study and were chosen on the
basis of their willingness to participate and diversity of lifestyles. With a funded study a
larger population could be studied and more reliable results could be obtained. All subject
names have been changed, but are intended to indicate social status in a way that often
occurs in society. Whether a subject is referred to by first name, last name, or both names
mirrors the way the actual subjects were known to the hub subject, Diann.
 CAD-based Accessibility Model 223

process that they are not able to guide or direct. To the degree that their work en-
tails communication, that communication is not so much a facet of their own ex-
tensibility as their bosses extensibility. In the terminology ofCastells (1996,244),
these two are the operated rather than the operators, integrators, designers, re-
searchers, or commanders of the information age. These are the executants who
work for the executives. The three 'powerless' subjects differ in that while Diann
and Mr. Worley do not use information technology at all in a professional capac-
ity, Lisa's job is heavily dependent on IT. Here we have what Castells (1996, 244)
calls a 'networked' worker, one who is 'on-line but without deciding when, how,
why, or with whom.'
The five can be contrasted by several aspects of extensibility: (a) the frequency,
duration and overall time devoted to travel, (b) the frequency, duration, and over-
all time devoted to incoming communication (e.g., reading), (c) the frequency,
duration, and overall time devoted to outgoing communication (e.g., writing).
These three general states combine to form a time-space rhythm that is unique to
each individual. In addition, the geographical range of both incoming and outgo-
ing communication varies, as does the social impact of the communications; work-
ing a crossword puzzle and editing a quarterly report are both ways of responding
to incoming communications, but the former clearly has less social impact than
the latter. While it is obvious that the powerful subjects enjoy their power, it is
also evident that the less powerful subjects have qualitatively different spatial
strategies, and this makes it hard to determine who is beUer off in an absolute
sense.

Thursday

The following is a construction of a Thursday in Fall 1997. Although constructed

from five different Thursdays, it could plausibly be a single day in the life of five
persons. Martin Kroopnick wakes first, followed by Diann, Thomas, Mr. Worley,
and Lisa, in that order. Waking is shown on Figures 13.1-13.7 by the j og in the
spine of the time-space diagram where it expands from a narrow channel to the
level labeled proximate. When they wake they are located throughout the Albany
metropolitan area, except for Martin who lives in western Massachusetts. Three of
them - Martin, Thomas, and Lisa - mainly use their early morning hours prepar-
ing to leave the house and going to work. Martin's routine also includes an exer-
cise session, Thomas helps his wife with childcare, and Lisa writes in a dream
journal. Diann, in contrast, begins working almost immediately after waking up,
since she works in the horne. Martin's extensibility also begins right away, but in
his case the reason is that he obsessively listens to his own radio station. We will
now consider each subject's day in turn.
Martin's day includes a diverse array of communication situations (Figure 13.1).
He is the manager of a chain of public radio stations, who also has his own televi-
sion program and provides a weekly commentary for a talk show on another radio
station. He contributes a daily commentary to a network television affiliate, as
224 P.C. Adams

weIl as editing a newsletter about the state legislature and teaching three college
courses. Martin's extraordinary schedule suggests an exceptionaIly high level of
extensibility. It is surprising, therefore, that much of his time is spent simply re-
ceiving one-way communications - reading.

tvlart in Kroopnick

12 :0 0 1
mid I I
I I
li sten t 0 radio (own s ta ti on)

li sten t 0 radio (own s ta ti on)

and dr i ve to radiostat ion
[
:.-----
-- .-
~;; answere-mail
r ead ne ws paper S (I ocal. regiona l,
6 :00
am
I --- ._ .. , nat i onal)
dr i ve to televi sion studio
r ecord t elevi sion prog ram
dr i ve 10 radio station
br iel meet ing, then read
grj~el~o~n,\;v~~sL~versity
read newspaper s

12:00
noon
I and repor ts

[
drive to televi sion

I
studi o, record TV
news commen tary ,
drive home

6 :00
pm
I wat eh TV and read

mOOi li ty --"-

one way
12 :00 communicalions { ,...1_ _ _- ,

mid 1 t woway

Figure 13,1. Extensibility diagram indicating the subject's mobility and communications
far a typical Thursday in autumn 1997.
He wakes up to the sound of his radio station and continues to listen while eat-
ing breakfast and driving west across the New York state border to work. When he
arrives at his office he reads the e-mail, which includes communications from ra-
dio station employees to hirn, and communications to station employees from per-
 CAD-based Accessibility Model 225

sons outside the station. He forwards the in-coming e-mail and answers the inter-
nal e-mail. Next, he begins to scan a total of seven daily or weekly newspapers
that have arrived at his desk that morning. A break occurs around 9:00 a.m. when
he and his producer drive to a television studio in an adjacent municipality to re-
cord his Sunday television program. He returns an hour and a half later, handles
details of the radio station administration, and continues skimming the papers.
During the ride back to the station he listens to his own radio station, discussing a
program and forming a link to a different space than the one his car moves
through. The metropolitan space shifts to the background of his consciousness and
he attends to the regional space covered by his radio stations.
The afternoon brings a shift of pace with office hours at the university and a
lecture in his journalism class. At 5:30 p.m., when class is over, he drives to the
television studio and prepares for his nightly political commentary. He waits dur-
ing earlier parts of the 6:00 p.m. news broadcast, chatting with the photographer,
the news anchor, and others on the set. He is on the air for two minutes, a span
oddly out of proportion to the familiarity it brings hirn as a political commentator.
He is in his car by 6:30 p.m., heading horne to the small Massachusetts town
where he sleeps.
Martin is in a small minority of the population whose outgoing communications
shape public perception of issues, a role that cannot be measured strictly in quanti-
tative terms, such as in minutes of communication. In essence, he serves a gate-
keeper function (McQuail and Windahl 1981, 100-101; White 1950), influencing
the kinds of issues that will be in the public eye. To be an opinion leader it is not
necessary to hold public attention for long periods of time. What matters are the
channels in which one communicates. Martin reflects this awareness in his obses-
sion with his au dien ce and potential ways to expand it.
Also noteworthy is his mobility. He drives for an hour to his office in Albany
from his house in a small Massachusetts town, rides with his producer for 15 min-
utes to and from his appointment at the television studio where he records his
weekly television pro gram, drives for 10 minutes between his studio and the uni-
versity campus, drives for 15 minutes to return to the television studio to record
his daily news commentary; then drives for an hour back to his house in Massa-
chusetts in the evening. It is not unusual for hirn to spend as much as three hours
on the road during the course of a day.
With such a varied set of responsibilities and ahorne far from his work places,
Martin's time away from horne is elongated beyond the typical range. He leaves
horne around 5:30 a.m. and returns at 7:30 p.m. Martin explains that when he en-
counters members of his audience in the town where he lives they are surprised to
find that he lives there. The time is short in which to enjoy the locational benefits
that his income and power provides. In effect, his activity at the regional scale
necessitates that he detach hirnself from local and metropolitan attachments.
Diann's working hours are even more unusual than Martin's (Figure 13.2). She
begins work at 5:40 a.m. in her living room, assembling child security kits for
Thomas' company while surfing the Web and listening to the radio. Oscillating
between homework and childcare, her working hours extend clear to bedtime, but
226 P.c. Adams

work is interspersed throughout the day with non-work activities, such as walks to
and from her daughter's pre-school, errands, visits with her friend, and 'time out'
to read a novel. The day of the study she takes a bath at 10:40 a.m. and attends a
sing-along with her daughter at 4:00 p.m. More non-work time appears at a finer
scale, in the numerous fluctuations between work and leisure that permeate her
day on a minute-to-minute basis. Even during working hours, her attention con-
stantly shifts between her work, her four-year-old daughter, and the Web or other
media that she uses to occupy her eyes and mind while working on kits with her
hands. The evening of the study day is a bit unusual in that her family runs several
errands in the car: they attend a photography session so they can send personalized
Christmas cards, they visit Thomas' office where Diann drops off the day's pro-
duction, and they shop at the grocery store. Diann lets her husband drive because
she hates driving in the city; she prefers to read a book and ignore the city entirely
until they reach their destination.
Diann's involvement in paid work at the same time she is using telecommunica-
tion and broadcast media for personal pleasure and exploration indicates a rather
unusual spatial strategy. She is not telecommuting, since her use of computer net-
works is for purposes other than work; but, like telecommuters, she is trading ex-
tensibility for mobility. She spends less time than any of the other study subjects
communicating at a face-to-face range, and more time engaged in national and
international scale communications. Her low mobility indicates a personal spatial
strategy of localization, but her use of media such the World Wide Web and Na-
tional Public Radio indicates a strategy of globalization. The horne, traditionally
private, domestic, and local, has become for her somewhat public, professional,
and non-Iocal.
Her social influence is primarily local, but this view of personal scale is prob-
lematized by her extensibility pattern, including the special role she serves as an
information gatherer and community member. She compares the online news with
stories on National Public Radio to get a better sense of non-Iocal events. This
active media use is important to her sense of autonomy and individuality, and adds
validity to her information-gathering role in her immediate social network, which
includes mainly family and friends. Even her boss, Thomas, has consulted her
regarding the Y2K bug, the world economy, and other issues.
Her pleasure with this extensible lifestyle is indicated as she cites Web surfing
as a reason she prefers to work at horne. The choice to stay at horne reduces the
time she spends driving, but that does not reflect a complete withdrawal from her
urban environment. In fact, an unusual proportion of her total travel time is spent
walking, which allows her to attend to her surroundings more than someone who
drives, particularly if they listen to the radio. In addition, she patronizes small
shops in her neighborhood, helping maintain the nodes of the community's activ-
ity. A quantitative comparison of time spent physically moving through the city
would obscure this qualitative difference. Summing up these characteristics we
find a spatial strategy combining attachment to the local - horne and neighborhood
- and the global, with avoidance ofthe metropolitan and state scales of activity.
 CAD-based Accessibility Model 227

Diann

12 :00 1
mid

intemet
radio

I intemet, radio

6 :00
am
I walking
reading
television

12 :00 1
noon

I
photo session
shopping

6 :00
pm
1 television

mooi li ty

12 :00
mid
communi cations { 'Ir---. one way

t woway

Figure 13.2. Extensibility diagram indicating the subject's mobility and communications
for a typical Thursday in autumn 1997.

Thomas has a more 'normal' work life than Diann, with a clear phase ofwork-
related extensibility starting shortly after 9:00 a.m. and ending around 5:00 p.m.
(Figure 13.3). This 'window' of activity in time-space defines a great deal of his
interactive (two-way) professional communication. The 9:00 a.m.-to-5:00 p.m.
work period is evident in his routine in the form of frequent, short communica-
tions (mainly by phone) at the national sc ale, altemating with even shorter com-
munications (by voice) at the proximate scale (in his office). He roams his "rG, ..
all day saying: 'Did you mail the order yet?' 'Is this your coffee?' or '!! "i " ~
228 P.C. Adams

Thomas

12 :00 1
mid

! drive and li slen 10 car radIo

6 :00
am I dr i ve and li slen 10 car radi o

phone . lax, POSIa!

communicat ion

dri ve and li slen 10 car radIO

phone, lax, postal
12 :00 1
noon
shop lor car part

phone , lax, postal

communicat ion
I review phone bill

1
dn ve and li slen 10 car radio
6 :00
pm web surl

watch television

12:00
mid communicati ons {r
1 _ _ _-,
I
one way

t woway

Figure 13.3. Extensibility diagram indicating the subject's mobility and communications
for a typical Thursday in autumn 1997.

'What's Up?' Work spills over into the rest ofhis day in the form ofletters to read
and accounts to check, either ofwhich can keep hirn busy until 9:30 p.rn.
Two-way communications at the national scale, phone conversations with cli-
ents, dorninate his daily schedule. These are prirnarily routine negotiations with
c1ients involving issues such as the layout of custornized kit covers, production
schedules and fees. While none of his communications are politically powerful in
the way that Martin's are, their existence creates job opportunities for about a
 CAD-based Accessibility Model 229

dozen employees and are therefore economically powerful. While Lisa and Tho-
mas may spend equal amounts of time communicating at the national level, Tho-
mas' communications are more closely tied to the exercise of personal power.
Lisa's communications may be better represented as part ofThomas' extensibility.
Thomas is consumed by his work and knows almost nothing about political af-
fairs, environmental problems, or the world economic situation. He knows Martin
Kroopnick only by name. When he hears of a major world event he occasionally
asks Diann or Lisa for their opinion, but otherwise does not search out informa-
tion. Thus, he is active at a large geographical scale, but only in a very limited
way, and with more agency than sensation.
His routine involves a high level of vehicular mobility. In the afternoon he
drives his new Volvo proudly around town doing office errands. While he could
send one of his employees, he values this chance to get away from the office and
enjoys showing off his car and driving aggressively. His car radio is turned up
high and tuned in to a local station with 'oldies' that provides a connection back in
time to his youth. The station draws from a nationally shared list of 1970s hits
thereby also connecting hirn outward in space to anational culture of 30-
somethings. Although Thomas might be conscious of the city of Albany as he
drives, his use of the radio limits the depth to which he is aware of his surround-
ings; he is as much in the music's ambiguous time-space as in the city (a string of
unfortunate car accidents attests to that fact). The telephone at the national scale
constitutes Thomas' professional persona while the car radio at an ambiguous spa-
tio-temporal scale allows hirn to feel at horne.
Thomas' secretary, Lisa, must adhere to a strict schedule, particularly in the
mornings; she is usually the first person to arrive at the office and must be there to
open the office at 9:30 a.m. (Figure 13.4). Still, she wakes up later than all but one
study subject. Around 9:25 a.m. each morning she unlocks the door, turns on the
light, and begins printing a computer report ofthe previous day's sales. While her
duties are varied, the ringing of the phones is the most persistent claim on her at-
tention, followed by the preparation of packages for UPS shipment. Strictly speak-
ing, these activities are part of Lisa's extensibility; she speaks with people in hun-
dreds of police offices around the country and sends them sampies of child-
security products and finished orders. But her actions are even more narrowly de-
fined than are those of Thomas - aside from her personable manner on the phone,
she has little control over what, when, or how she communicates. All of her ac-
tions are determined during work hours by office routines that have developed in
an ad hoc way, or by the logic oftrying to expedite orders, or (less often) by direct
orders from Thomas. Her extensibility during work hours, therefore, is not entirely
her own.
Nevertheless, unlike the automaton stereotype of the information age drone, or
protosurp (Dear and Flusty 1998), Lisa appropriates this situation and retains her
humanity in and through the technologies she must use for her job. She genuinely
enjoys speaking on the telephone to the office's many clients, service providers,
and employees. She brightens up their days with a bit of conversation, and re-
members many people's names and personal trivia in this telephone space.
230 P.c. Adams

Lisa

12 :00 -,-
mid

I
6 :00
am I answe rtelephone,
mail packages. pr i nl
compuler liles,lall<
wilhco-workers
read book dur ing lunch

answer I el ephone . wrile

12 :00 1 memos. pr i nl compu l er fi les.
noon lall< w i Ih co- wor1<ers

same as above

I
read book
6 :00
pm
1
I alk 10 housemale, work on puzzle

12:00
mid one way
communicalions { I ___...,
....
1 I woway

Figure 13.4. Extensibility diagram indicating the subject's mobility and communications
for a typical Thursday in autumn 1997.

Outside of business hours and during her fugitive lunch periods (when she
physically leaves the office and goes to the grocery store deli to avoid being inter-
rupted), Lisa enjoys a very different kind of extensibility. She reads broadly from
the texts of many different religions, expanding her knowledge in the subject in
which she holds a Bachelor's degree. At present she is reading the Hermetica and
a book of poetry about trees. She loves books, reading, and talking, and accord-
ingly spends several hours a day engaged in conversation with her boyfriend about
topics of interest from her reading. These emotional and communicational ties to
realities outside the work routine could easily be overlooked as unimportant to the
 CAD-based Accessibility Model 231

material fact of her status as secretary, but they provide intellectual sustenance to
remain a friendly voice on the phone as she looks for a job that better uses her
college degree. 3
Her mobility is somewhat limited in speed and distance as she walks to and
from work as weIl as to and from her lunchtime retreat at the grocery store deli.
Qualitative issues are involved. She explains that the daily walks give her time to
think about her poetry and her reading. She sometimes walks past her apartment or
takes a longer route to extend this period of time. For her (like Thomas but in a
slower framework) mobility is obviously more than simply a utilitarian concem
and getting there is not the main objective. However, like Diann, her involvement
with her surroundings seems to be higher that that of Thomas as she moves
through town. Her spatial strategy is interesting.
She maintains strong ties to religious ideas originating in distant times and
places, and to her horne and the section oftown where she walks. While her work-
related extensibility is frequent and economically important, both to her and her
business, it is questionable whether it should even be included in her time-space
diagram or whether it perhaps should be shown in Thomas' diagrarn.
Mr. Worley has the most leisurely schedule (Figure 13.5). He rises any time
between 6:00 a.m. and 7:30 a.m. most days, keeping a rather loose schedule. His
days are filled with a small repertoire of activities: driving to the local Friendly's
restaurant for breakfast, walking in the neighborhood, exercising on the mat in his
TV room, reading the newspaper, watching TV alone or with his adult son, and
buying groceries.
The pace is leisurely, as any one of these activities is drawn out to last at least
half hour. The only activities of short duration are conversations with neighbors,
such as Diann, whom he meets on the sidewalk. Even these can take half an hour
if the other person is not in a hurry. His conversations serve a community-
sustaining function, at least among the older residents of the neighborhood who
have known hirn for years. In this sense, he manifests a localizing spatial strategy.
Nevertheless, Mr. Worley is not out of touch with the world. He spends several
ho urs a day reading the newspaper and informs hirnself of key events in his local
community and a smattering of national affairs that catch his attention. Most of his
communication is one-way communication: reading the newspaper or watching
television. His two-way communication opportunities are primarily in face-to-face
situations, with neighbors, Friendly's employees, and his house cleaner. Unlike
Diann, he does not act as an information source. Some of what he learns he keeps
to hirns elf. More often, he takes delight in bringing his discussions around to his
cynical and ironic perception that the world is in a mess.
Less deliberately than Diann, he has traded mobility for extensibility. His
housebound lifestyle increases his sensory involvement in affairs at the metropoli-
tan, regional, and national scales. Attitudinally, however, he is not particularly

3 By the time of this writing, she has found another job organizing the planting of 'cham-
pion' trees, which conforrns more closely to her values and goals. Presumably her reading
and writing were preludes to this career path.
232 P.C. Adams

receptive to such distant information, often summing up his view of the world
with a few favorite expletives. This, too, is a spatial strategy. It is a brand of local-
ism that draws parasitically on non-Ioeal media as a source of ironie eritique of
distant events.

Mr. Worley

12 :00 1
mid

I
read newspaper
6 :00
am
I" shop

r ead ne wspape r

r ead A AFf> bu II el in
and read mai I
12 :00 1
noon

I r ead old ne wspapers

I walch
televi sIon

6 :00
pm
1 ta lk 10 son

walch
televi sion

12 :00
mid communi calions { I,. .___• one way

I I woway

Figure 13.5. Extensibility diagram indicating the subject's mobility and communications
for a typical Thursday in autumn 1997.
 CAD-based Accessibility Model 233

13.4 Discussion

These five people have greatly divergent patterns of extensibility. Their differ-
ences are only superficially tied to opportunity. Strictly speaking, Mr. Worley and
Diann have similar opportunities to communicate but Diann spends much of her
time listening to the radio and surfing the Web while Mr. Worley spends his time
reading newspapers and chatting with neighbors. His lack of a computer is due not
to a lack of funds or proper location, but rather a lack of interest. Nor can the dif-
ference be reduced to a difference in cultural capital without recognizing that Di-
ann is not profiting from her use of the Internet but simply using it to pass the time
and to situate herself in the world. Mr. Worley simply satisfies these objectives in
a different way. To construe her greater degree of connectivity as an advantage is
to misconstrue her purpose and rewards, and to impose an apriori judgment on
these two forms of communication. In contrast, sometimes-similar levels of exten-
sibility are not what they appear to be. Lisa and Thomas have much the same
communication opportunities during work hours, but one determines what will be
communicated while (with certain caveats) the other does not. Surely Thomas has
an advantage in extensibility, although that advantage is difficult to specify.

What has been called accessibility is most often based on measures of opportu-
nity derived from technological and economic patterns, but this is clearly an in-
adequate notion. Communications more closely reflect social power, but here
again the connection is subtle. Most important are personal interests, goals, habits,
and social connections, phase in the life cycle, gender, and other factors of the
individual.
Communication is, in short, part of a time-space routine that is personal and
difficult to generalize. The idea of 'opportunity' as typically construed in studies
of accessibility must, therefore, be supplemented by actuality. Mr. Worley gets aB
the newspapers he needs, and what he misses on the Internet generally lies beyond
his range of interests. Thomas' business depends on the telephone, but aside from
purchasing several independent lines and a fax machine he has not yet feIt a need
to adopt more sophisticated telecommunications at work. He does have Internet
access from his horne, but uses it infrequently. Lisa's passion is communication,
but not telecommunication; she prefers a good book that she can carry out of the
office during her lunch hour, and discuss in the evening with her boyfriend as they
sit in the kitchen or bedroom. Martin uses the Internet daily, but mainly for receiv-
ing e-mail; he keeps abreast of current events by reading national, regional, state,
and local newspapers. Diann alone has built the Internet into her life as a serious
passion, not because of her social status, but in part through the acceptance of a
job with little social status.
Likewise, the most mobile subjects, Martin and Thomas, do not appear to be in
the space they are so often driving through. They listen to the car radio, one to
survey his own indirect labor, the other to bind past and present, dream and actual-
ity. Physical mobility is, oddly, a constraint they both seek to overcome with ex-
234 P.C. Adams

tensibility. I would argue that what is overcome is the involvement with physical
surroundings that is possible when one walks through an environment, like the
apparently less mobile subjects. Again, qualitative issues complicate the picture:
access to space is not merely measurable in terms of distance; one must also con-
sider depth.
A map of communication opportunities, for example a map of Internet hosts
and data transmission backbone, misses an essential point. Opportunities are
determined not by an abstract calculus but by individually determined needs.
Constraints are constraints only when they interfere with someone's self-defined
needs. Only theoretical individuals can occupy the spaces of opportunity shown
by traditional maps of accessibility. The five individuals in this study display
five radically different lifestyles and five ranges of need, these correspond to five
spatial strategies of real persons. Older media such as books and telephones eas-
ily satisfy some oftheir spatial strategies, while others require newer media, such
as television and the Internet. The abstract metric of accessibility cannot capture
the relativity of individual needs and goals.
It is notable that the connections between Diann and the other four subjects are
brief. If one aggregates all such interactions, calls them interactions in place, and
compares them with interactions at a distance, the two are roughly equal in time
use. People who spend more of their time at horne spend a higher proportion of
total time involved in non-local communication situations. This points to a trend
of localization within globalization, or perhaps globalization within localization.
The opposition between global and local cannot describe the individuals in the
study because they are folding the world into the space ofthe locality.
For some of the subjects, horne has dwindled in functional importance because
of a mobile lifestyle and heavy workload. In this category are Martin Kroopnick
and Thomas. Perhaps, also, locality has dwindled for these people. While Thomas
lives 15 minutes from his place of work, Martin lives an hour away. His lifestyle
choice is not uncommon among the wealthy. The irony of this choice is that its
costs, the personal loss of 16 hours per week and the public cost of automobile
emissions, are spent on a choice that he does not appear to have much time or en-
ergy to enjoy. Thomas also suffers high costs in the form of the period of time he
is away from horne each day. Diann reveals an alternative strategy that does not
provide the same benefits in social power, but satisfies goals relating to quality of
life and the quality of others' (her child's) life. No doubt women are more inclined
to emphasize these values. Even so, Ü is not necessary that they sacrifice career
goals while adopting this spatial strategy (Helgeson 1998).
Surveying the different rotations of the extensibility diagram (Figures 13.6 and
13.7), we see a complex architecture of ties to the regional, national, and global
scales. This architecture clings tenuously together at the local level, with momen-
tary exchanges such as the 'hello' one says to a neighbor or the brief exchange of
work-related information. The most intimate relationships are not shown, such as
ties between husband and wife, best friends, and associates who work in the same
office. Nevertheless the diagram suggests a truth about modem urban settings.
 CAD-based Accessibility Model 235

Almost any five citizens drawn randomly from the Albany metropolitan area will
be held together tenuously if at all by communication links.
Diann says "Good
morning" 10 Mr. Worley.
Mr. Worley

Usa
Diann haars Mari in
Kroopnick on I he
radio.

Diann

Figure 13.6. Extensibility diagram combining Figures 13.1 - 13.5, and also showing com-
munications between Diann and other participants

In the information age, personal ties to non-Iocal scales seriously riyal ties to
locality. What makes this situation perplexing is not its existence, because that
could be attributed simply to the scale ofthe extant communication media. Rather,
its mystery lies in the way people mix radically different spatial strategies in the
pursuit of personal goals and seem to find mutually agreeable results in the proc-
ess. There is a process of specialization that is entirely different than the speciali-
zation of skills employed in one's job: people also specialize in the spatial strate-
gies they employ in the pursuit of personal and collective goals. In a way
analogous to the merging of specialized skills to produce a diversified economy,
we can observe a merging of spatial strategies to produce a diversified space-time
fabric. lt may be that the regional focus of one facilitates the local focus or global
focus of another.
Ties at the macro-scale between accessibility and economic power must be ac-
knowledged. The wealthy and powerful do have more communication tools at
their disposal. However, we must not, as a consequence of this observation, over-
236 P.C. Adams

look the free engagement and participation in the construction of communication

flows by all strata of society.

Diann hears Mar! in

Diann

Mr.

",

Diann c alls Thomas'

01 fice and speaks
wilh Usa

Diann speaks wil h Thomas

al his office

Figure 13.7. Extensibility diagram combining Figures 13 .1-13.5, and also showing com-
munications between Diann and other participants.

Appendix: A Note on Methodology

Information was gathered using a combination of interviews, time-diaries filled

out by subjects, and direct observation. The mix of these techniques varied de-
pending on the schedule and preferences of the subject. Significant attempts were
made to approach the actual schedule of the subject, but the end result is intended
as an illustration of a type of extensibility pattern rather than a precise replica of
that subject's day.
To reveal the rhythms of daily communication, I eliminated the directional as-
pects of communication and retained the physical movements and the distance and
duration of each communication. That distance was simplified to a more abstract
concept of social scale by classification, as folIows:
1 proximate (face to face, inside a building)
2 metropolitan (the Albany/Schenectady/Troy metropolitan area)
3 state (New York)
 CAD-based Accessibility Model 237
4 regional (New England and New York)
5 national (outside New England and New York but inside the United States)
6 international/global (outside the United States)
The communications of each subject over the course of a day are then arrayed
within a unique plane in the virtual space. The rhythm (duration and frequency)
and range (relativized distance) of communications are the primary attributes re-
vealed. Standardizing distance measures helps reveal what is most socially rele-
vant about distanciated (spatially extended) communications: their association
with particular scales of social organization (see below).
The supporting software, Vellum®, is a CAD program by Ashlar, Inc. used
most often for architecture and industrial design. Vellum converts two-
dimensional shapes and lines to three dimensional 'wireframes' through 'extrude'
and 'revolve' utilities,then transforms these into surfaces through the 'autosur-
face ' utility.
Data was first entered as a spreadsheet chart (in MS-Excel), displayed in achart,
then exported as a 'picture' into Vellum where it was vectorized by hand. The
c1assification of communication distances, and whether the communication is one-
way or two-way, involved the following rule: if a person used more than one form
of communication at a time, the code for the farthest appropriate range of commu-
nication was used. This was partly in the interest of revealing extensibility, and
partly out of a conviction that a local or metropolitan sense of place can easily be
overwhelmed by distanciated experiences.
Another decision was how to discern between one-way and two-way communi-
cation. The primary concern was to distinguish one-way communication for which
the individual has no opportunity to reply (such as radio), from media that support
discussion and comment (such as telephone and e-mail). For this reason, the one-
wlry communications indicated are those in which the subject is a receiver rather
than asender. Any one-way communication in which the subject is asender (e.g.,
writing a letter) is coded in the same category as spontaneously interactive com-
munication (e.g., tal king on the telephone), hence as two-way. The out-going
communication is assumed to support interaction, and thus is part of a two-way
exchange. Based on earlier research I have coded the use of computer networks as
interactive. The typical use of Internet communication is active and exploratory,
which results in a kind of dialogue.
Shopping is a particularly problematic type of activity to code. While it occurs
in a bounded space, such as a supermarket or shopping mall, it is one of the most
important ways people affect distant others. The messages they send are anony-
mous and abstract since they are transmitted by money, but they have real conse-
quences. A farmer may switch from a subsistence crop to a market crop in re-
sponse to perceived demand. His or her life has been affected by a message sent
from distant markets in the abstract medium of money, so shopping is coded as
communication, but in the chart with summations of interaction time (Figure 13.8)
sums are shown with and without shopping included, A and B respectively.
238 P.C. Adams

COMPARISON OF PERSONAL EXTENSIBILITY

GI 100%
.~ 90%
CI 80 %
c

-
:i: 70%
CI!
~ 60%
0 50%
GI 40 %
CI
~ 30%
c 20%
GI
I:! 10%
GI
Q. 0%
« III « III .><
c:
c:
c:
c: ~~
>.
..: Q) .-c ·~
c:
1: a.
'"
Ci
CI!
(5
~"t:
0
~"t:
'" 0
~ ~ ~e
~

Qproxirnate li:I rnetropolitan an state wide

I2lregional • national • international

Figure 13.8. Approximate pereentage ofwaking hours spent by eaeh partieipant eommuni-
eating at a given range, ineoming and outgoing eommunieations - eombined. Reprinted
with permission from Urban Geography, Vol. 20, No. 4, pp. 356-76. © V.H. Winston &
Son, Ine., 360 South Oeean Boulevard, Palm Beaeh FL 33480. All rights reserved.

References
Adams, P. 1995. A reeonsideration of personal boundaries in spaee-time. Annals 0/ the
Association 0/American Geographers 85(2):267-85 .
Adams, P. 1996. Protest and the seale polities ofteleeommunieations. Political Geography
15( 5):419-41.
Adams, P 1999. Bringing globalization horne: A homeworker in the information age. Ur-
ban Geography 20:356-76.
Castells, M. 1996. The Rise ofthe Network Soeiety. The Information Age: Eeonomy, Soci-
ety and Cuiture, I. Maiden MA and Oxford: Blaekwell.
Castells, M. 1997. The Power of Identity. The Information Age: Eeonomy, Soeiety and
CuIture, 2. Maiden MA and Oxford: B1aekwell.
Castells, M. 1998. End ofMillenium. The Information Age: Eeonomy, Soeiety and Culture,
3. Maiden MA and Oxford: Blaekwell.
Curry, M. 1995. Geographie Information Systems and the inevitability of ethiea1 ineonsis-
teney. In Piekies, J. (ed.) Ground Truth., New York and London: The Guilford Press, 68-
87.
Dear, M., and Flusty, S. 1998. Postmodern urbanism. Annals 0/ the Association 0/ Ameri-
can Geographers 88:50-72.
Fiske, J. 1987. Television Culture. London and New York: Methuen.
 CAD-based Accessibility Model 239

Graham, S. and Marvin, S. 1996. Telecommunications and the City: Electronic Spaces.
Urban Places. London and New York: Routledge.
Habermas, 1. 1987. The Theory of Communicative Action. Lifeworld and System: A Cri-
tique of Functionalist Reason, 2. Translated by Thomas McCarthy. Boston: Beacon
Press.
Hägerstrand, T. 1970. What about people in regional science? Papers 0/ the Regional Sci-
ence Association 24:7-21.
Helgeson, S. 1998. Everyday Revolutionaries: Working Women and the Transformation of
American life. New York: Doubleday.
Janelle, D. 1973. Measuring human extensibility in a shrinking world. The Journal o/Ge-
ography 72(5):8-15.
Jonas, A.E.G. 1994. Editorial: The scale politics of spatiality. Environment and Planning
D: Society and Space. 12(3):257-64.
McQuail, D., and Windahl, S. 1981. Communication Models. London and New York:
Longman.
Sack, R. 1986. Human Territoriality: Its Theory and History. Cambridge: Cambridge Uni-
versity Press.
Sack, R. 1997. Homo Geographicus: A Framework for Action, Awareness, and Moral Con-
cern. Baltimore and London: The John Hopkins University Press.
White, D.M. 1950. The 'Gatekeepers' : A case study in the selection of news. Journalism
Quarterly 27:383-90.
14 Human Extensibility and Individual Hybrid-
accessibility in Space-time: A Multi-scale
Representation Using GIS

Mei-Po Kwan

Department of Geography, The Ohio State University, Columbus OH 43210-1316, USA.

Email: Kwan.8@osu.edu

14.1 Introduction

With the increasing use of the Internet for getting information, transacting busi-
ness and interacting with people, a wide range of activities in everyday life can
now be undertaken in cyberspace. As traditional models of accessibility are based
on physical notions of distance and proximity, they are inadequate for conceptual-
izing or analyzing individual accessibility in the physical world and cyberspace
(hereafter referred to as hybrid-accessibility). To address the need for new models
of space and time that enable us to represent individual accessibility in the infor-
mation age, there are at least three major research areas: (a) the conceptual and/or
behavioral foundation of individual accessibility; (b) appropriate methods for rep-
resenting accessibility; and (c) feasible operational measures for evaluating indi-
vidual accessibility. With the recent development and application of GIS methods
in the study of accessibility in the physical world (e.g., Forer 1998, Hanson, Ko-
miniak, and Carlin 1997, Huisman and Porer 1998, Kwan 1998, 1999a, 1999b,
MilIer 1991,1999, Scott 1999, Talen 1997, Talen and Anselin 1998), it is apparent
that GIS have considerable potential in each of these research areas. As shown in
some of these studies, a focus on the individual enabled by GIS methods also re-
veals the spatial-temporal complexity in individual activity patterns and
accessibility through 3D visualization or computational procedures.
Yet, even with the advent of 3D GIS tools, there are several difficulties when
GIS methods are applied to represent or measure individual hybrid-accessibility.
First, personal accessibility in the age of information involves multiple spatial and
temporal scales (Hodge 1997), whereas current GIS are designed to handle only
one geographical and/or temporal scale at a time. For instance, personal extensi-
bility enabled by telecommunication technologies now allows an individual to
access information resources at the global scale although the person's physical
activities are still largely confined at the local scale. Further, the traditional tempo-
ral scale (ho ur/minute ) is not adequate for studying cyber-transactions that may be
accomplished within a few seconds. Second, GIS-based representational and com-
putational methods, such as the space-time prism, are based on the sequential un-
242 M-P Kwan

folding of a person's activities in the physical world. They are not developed to
handle the simultaneity and temporal disjuncture that characterize many types of
cyber-transactions. For example, a person may be talking over the phone and
browsing a Web page at the same time. An email message sent out now may be
read several hours later on the other side of the globe. These limitations of current
GIS methods constitute a major challenge to any effort to represent and measure
individual hybrid-accessibility in the information age.
As a preliminary attempt to address this methodological challenge, this paper
explores how current GIS, given their limitations, can be deployed for the 3D in-
teractive visualization of human extensibility in space-time. It develops and pre-
sents a method for the multi-scale, 3D representation of individual space-time
paths based upon the concept of human extensibility (Janelle 1973, Adams 1995).
Using geo-referenced activity diary data for an individual as an example and Arc-
View GIS software (© ESRI, Inc), the method is capable of revealing the spatial
scope and temporal rhythms of a person's extensibility in cyberspace. It can also
represent the complex interaction patterns among individuals in cyberspace using
multiple and branching space-time paths within a GIS. Compared with the two-
dimensional and/or cartographic representations in past studies, this method al-
lows the researeher to interact, explore and manipulate the 3D scene (e.g., rota-
tion, fly-through). This visualization environment not only greatly facilitates ex-
ploratory data analysis, but can also enhance our understanding of the patterns
portrayed. It may provide the basis for formulating operational measures of indi-
vidual hybrid-accessibility. In this paper, the nature of accessibility in the informa-
tion age is first examined, and then alternative representational methods are dis-
cussed. Implementation of the GIS method using real activity diary data of an
individual is described.

14.2 The Problem of Accessibility in the Information Age

In the physical world, the problem of accessibility is basically a problem of over-

coming the impedance of physical separation between locations of demand and
supply. Accessibility in physical space, therefore, depends largely on the spatial
distribution of urban opportunities, available means of transport, and travel mobil-
ity (Bums 1979). Its foundation is the place- or location-boundedness of opportu-
nities, where access to facilities and services is predicated on meeting the space-
time co-location and co-presence requirements for spatial interaction (Giddens
1984). With distance between locations as the major impedance ofmovement, and
with a given space-time distribution of opportunities in the urban environment,
individual accessibility can be specified by these fundamental elements. In such an
environment, the geometry or topology of the transportation network and the
space-time constraints faced by individuals in their everyday lives are crucial for
evaluating accessibility (Miller 1991).
 Human Extensibility and Individual Hybrid-accessibility 243

In the virtual world enabled and created by telecommunication technologies and

the Internet, however, the nature of access to opportunities or information re-
sources is drastically different from that in the physical world. In cyberspace, ac-
cess to resources and interactions between different individuals are mediated by
communication technologies. It therefore depends more on the availability of
these technologies to a particular person and the skills possessed than the time or
cost necessary for overcoming physical separation. Except in the cases where the
cost of access or interaction still depends on the physical separation of locations
(e.g., long-distance phone charges), distance between locations or individuals
would have little effect on individual accessibility and spatial interaction in cyber-
space. When an electronic packet can travel around the globe within a second or
so, time-space convergence is literally complete (Kwan 2000). Physical distance
between the origin and destination of an electronic packet also seems to bear little
relationship with the duration taken to traverse such distance (MCI 1998, MIDS
1998).
If physical separation between locations is playing a less important role in de-
termining access and spatial interaction (as in cases where the Internet is used for
a wide variety of activities), many fundamental determinants of accessibility in
conventional models are no longer important. For instance, the information super-
highway does not have many similarities with conventional transportation net-
works. Since locations are connected through worldwide computer networks that
enable multiple access paths and that operate on optical fibers at light speed, the
effects of physical separation between locations and of topologies of transporta-
tion networks are obliterated. Further, since telecommunication technologies and
the Internet provide various means for moderating the space-time constraints of
many activities, the space-time co-Iocation and co-presence requirements for ac-
cess or spatial interaction for many activities are also obliterated (e.g., voice mail,
electronic bulletin boards, and the World Wide Web). It is possible for one indi-
vidual to be at several (cyber) locations at the same time, and, thus, to violate the
constraint that 'one individual cannot exist in two places at one time' (Car1stein
1982). The spatiotemporal configuration of resources or opportunities in cyber-
space is, therefore, drastically different from what is available in the physical
world.
With these complexities introduced by cyber-transactions, the problem of acces-
sibility in the new hybrid physical-virtual world is far more complicated and diffi-
cult to deal with. This suggests that conventional models are inadequate for repre-
senting and measuring individual accessibility in such new hybrid spaces. Further,
differences between accessibility in the physical and virtual worlds require new
conceptual and analytical models since we are dealing now with two drastically
different realms and their interface. To address the limitations of conventional
methods for representing hybrid-accessibility, lexamine the notion of the person
as an extensible agent based on the work of Janelle (1973), Thrift (1985), and Ad-
ams (1995). Based on this concept of personal extensibility and Hägerstrand's
(1970) time-geographie framework, I then describe a multi-scale three-
dimensional representation of individual space-time paths using GIS.
244 M-PKwan

14.3 Human Extensibility in Space-time

Janelle (1973) first formulated the concept ofthe individual as an extensible agent,
where extensibility represents the ability of a person to overcome the friction of
distance through space-adjusting technologies, such as transportation and commu-
nication. As the conceptual reciprocal of time-space convergence, which reflects
the degree to which places are approaching one another in time-distance, human
extensibility measures the increased opportunities for interaction among people
and places (Janelle 1973). The development of communication and transportation
technologies (or spatial technologies) and their associated institutions thus imply a
shrinking warld with expanding opportunities for extensibility (Adams 1995,
Coucleclis 1994). Further, human extensibility not only expands a person's scope
of sensory access and knowledge acquisition, it also enables a person to engage in
distantiated social actions whose effect may extend across disparate geographical
regions or historical episodes (Adams 1999, Thrift 1985).
Adams (1995) extended this notion of human extensibility through a new model
of the person based on the structuration perspective (Giddens 1984), where the
spatially contingent and socially embedded nature of human extensibility is em-
phasized. Inequality in human extensibility with respect to gender, race and other
socially significant categories is understood in terms of the mutually constitutive
relations between the individual experience of accessibility and macro-level socie-
tal processes. Adams (1995) captured the dynamic and fluid nature of personal
boundaries through the notion of 'people as amoebas'. The body is reconceptual-
ized as a dynamic entity, which combines

a body rooted in a particular place at any given time, bounded in knowledge gathering
by the range of unaided sensory perception, [and] ... any number of fluctuating, den-
dritic, extensions which actively engage with social and natural phenomena, at varying
distances (Adams 1995, 269).

This notion of human extensibility not only provides a useful point of departure
for understanding individual accessibility in the information age. It also offers a
theoretical foundation for overcoming many limitations in the traditional under-
standing of corporeality found in Hägerstrand's time-geographic framework. As
Rose's (1993) critique suggests, depicting a person's trajectory in space-time as a
linear and clear-cut path has many difficulties, especially when the framework is
used to understand women's everyday lives. Further, since constructs of the time-
geographic framework have been used to formulate accessibility measures in the
past (e.g., Bums 1979, Lenntorp 1976, Villoria 1989), a representational device
capable of handling this reconceptualized extensibility is an important first step in
formulating operational measures of individual hybrid-accessibility.
For this purpose, Adams (1995) developed the extensibility diagram using the
cartographic medium. The diagram, based on Hägerstrand's space-time aquarium,
portrays a person's daily activities and interactions with others as multiple and
 Human Extensibility and Individual Hybrid-accessibility 245

branching space-time paths in three dimensions, where simultaneity and temporal

disjuncture of different activities are revealed. Fuzzy zones surrounding the space-
time paths represent the fluidity of personal boundaries. This method, as shown in
Adams (1995) and expanded upon in Chapter 13 can be used to represent a diverse
range of human activities in both the physical and virtual worlds, including tele-
phoning, driving, e-mailing, reading, remembering, meeting face-to-face, and
television viewing. Although the extensibility diagram is largely a cartographic
device, most ofits elements are amenable to GIS implementation. As a first step to
improve the representation and measurement of individual hybrid-accessibility,
the next two sections explore alternative GIS methods for implementing the exten-
sibility diagram. The focus is on incorporating the multiple spatial scales and tem-
poral complexities (e.g., simultaneity and disjuncture) involved in individual hy-
brid-accessibility.

14.4 Alternative Representational Methods

Early methods used to represent human extensibility as individual space-time

paths are largely graphie al devices (e.g., Bums 1979, Pred and Palm 1978). For
the study of individual accessibility, these representations are useful for giving an
idea about the size of or changes in the space-time prism resulting from particular
activities. Due to the unavailability of the geoprocessing capabilities of GIS at that
time, there were only a few attempts to implement these constructs in an opera-
tional sense. Those who have resorted to computational procedures for implement-
ing time-geographie accessibility measures, however, encountered many difficul-
ties. Their results may deviate from what might have been obtained if the original
constructs were fully implemented (see discussion in Kwan and Hong 1998).
Recent application of GIS methods in representing and measuring individual
accessibility in space-time has made significant progress. For instance, Forer
(1998) and Huisman and Forer (1998) implemented space-time paths and prism on
a three-dimensional raster data structure for visualization and computational pur-
poses. Their method is especially useful for aggregating individuals with similar
socioeconomic characteristics and for identitying behavioral patterns. On the other
hand, Miller (1991, 1999), Kwan (1998, 1999a) and Kwan and Hong (1998) de-
veloped different network-based algorithms for computing individual accessibility
using vector GIS procedures. Kwan (l999b) implemented 3D visualization of
space-time paths and aquarium using vector-based GIS methods and activity-
travel diary data. These studies demonstrated that GIS methods have considerable
potential for advancing this research area. Further, implementation of 3D
representations of human extensibility is a first step to the development of GIS-
based computational procedures. The suitability of two possible methods in a 3D
GIS environment is discussed below.
246 M-P Kwan

(a) Traditional Single-scale Representation. Ihe simplest method for represent-

ing a person's space-time path is the space-time aquarium constructed first by
Hägerstrand (1970). In a schematic representation of the aquarium, the vertical
axis reflects the time of day and the boundary of the horizontal plane represents
the spatial scope of the study area. Individual space-time paths can then be plotted
as trajectories in this three-dimensional aquarium. Individual accessibility can be
evaluated through deriving the space-time prism defined by fixed activities in a
person's daily activity schedule. Recent examples of implementing this represen-
tation through 3D visualization using GIS are demonstrated in Chapter 5, in Hu-
isman and Forer (1998), and in Kwan (1999b).
When transactions in cyberspace are included, visualizations using this method
encounter one major difficulty: neither the spatial nor temporal scale of the tradi-
tional space-time aquarium is adequate for reflecting the full range of activities.
For instance, the spatial scale at which local activities and travel can be visualized
would render activities at the regional or global level out of range and invisible to
the analyst. Further, the temporal intervals for recording activities in the physical
world are too long for capturing the rhythm and pace of cyber-transactions, which
have sub-second travel speeds (e.g., 0.4 second) and very short transaction dura-
tions when compared with physical activities. Using the zoom-in or zoom-out ca-
pability of a GIS also does not reduce this difficulty, as experimentation by the
current author suggests. Other methods for representing multiple spatial and tem-
poral scales are needed.

(b) Multi-scale Representation Using Linked Graphical Windows. One way

to enable GIS-based 3D visualization of a person's space-time path at multiple
scales is through the use of several dynamically-linked graphical windows. Io
implement this method, an individual's activities in the physical world and in cy-
berspace can be displayed using several graphical windows, each ofwhich focuses
on transactions at a specific spatial andJor temporal scale. For example, one win-
dow may show activities or travel at the local scale (e.g., the county ofresidence),
while another may illustrate cyber-transactions involving Web sites or individuals
located in other regions of the world. Each of these windows can be dynamically
linked so that manipulations during the visualization process (e.g., rotation) in one
of them will be automatically reflected in other linked windows. Further, the ana-
lyst can manipulate the graphical objects in any of these linked windows. A sin-
gle-scale implementation of this method is found in the multi-panel 3D plot fea-
tures in the S-Plus visualization environment ofMathSoft, Inc. (1997).
Ihis apparently attractive alternative, however, also has its difficulties. Since
transactions involving different spatial or temporal scales are separately displayed,
it is difficult for the analyst to identify the overall space-time patterns of and the
interactions among the individuals involved. For instance, for an individual who
has access to the Internet only at the workplace, Web transactions undertaken at
horne (and most likely in the evening) would be non-existent. In the case of an
employee whose work phone number is not accessible to non-work purposes, dis-
tanciated communications with friends and relatives can only take place before or
 Human Extensibility and Individual Hybrid-accessibility 247

after work. These kinds of interactions between activities in the physical world
and cyberspace would be difficult to identifY when this method is used.
Because of the !imitations of these two methods, another method for the multi-
scale, three-dimensional representation of individual space-time paths in hybrid
physical-virtual world is discussed in the next section. This method integrates
transactions at different spatial scales in one graphical window, where the overall
pattern or relationships among activities at different spatial scales can be easily
identified. It can represent various types of transactions that take placc at the same
time (simultaneity). Further, the method allows differentiation of attributes for
each transaction using graphical legends. For example, color codes can show
transactions at different spatial scales (Ioeal, regional, global), with different tem-
poral characteristics (synchronous, asynchronous), and undertaken through differ-
ent communication modes (one-way incoming, one-way outgoing, two-way).
Most of the data pre-processing was performed using ARCINFO while the visu-
alization was implemented using ArcView 3D Analyst.

14.5 A Multi-scale Representation of Individual Space-time

Paths: An Example

(a) Data. The activity data of an individual, Pui-Fun (a fictitious name), was col-
lected and used to implement the GIS method. This person is a software engineer
who works in a telecommunications company in Columbus, Ohio. Information
about her activities in the physical world was collected in the form of an activity-
travel diary. Data about her activities in cyberspace were compiled from the his-
tory file of her Web browser and email directory. As these data did not come with
time stamps for computing the timing and duration of her cyber-transactions, the
temporal information needed for constructing the space-time path was recon-
structed through a personal interview, in which she also explained each of her ac-
tivities recorded on the diary day (Table 14.1). This makes a GIS-based graphic-
narrative ofher activities on this day possible. Further, as several Web pages were
browsed during each ofher visits to the Web sites recorded, Web browsing activi-
ties are grouped into distinctive sessions identified by the site visited (instead of
presenting details of each page browsed). Table 14.1 divides her activities in terms
of the local, regional (15 northeastern states in the United States) and global scales
according to the location ofthese transactions. The following account ofPui-Fun's
cyber-transactions focuses mainly on the Internet since other forms of personal
extensibility such as interactions via the telephone were not recorded.
248 M-PKwan

Table 14.1.Activities undertaken by Pui-Fun on the diary day

Activity start time Activity end time Location involved

(hr/min) (hr/min) Local Regional Global

3:00 8:20 Horne

8:30 Work
8:35 8:50 Chicago
9:15 9:35 Chicago
9:35 9:45 Charlotte
9:45 10:00 Maywood
14:00 14:20 Chicago
16:15 16:25 Charlotte
16:25 16:35 Chicago
16:35 16:50 Maywood
21:10 21:30 Chicago
24:00 00:20 next day HongKong
00:40 next day 3:00 Horne

Source: Activity diary and personal interview with subject, August 1998

Activity data provide information about Pui-Fun's activities in both the physical
world and in cyberspace for a Saturday that she worked from 8:30 a.m. to 12 mid-
night (Table 14.1). This is an unusual schedule since she normally works only
from 9 am to 5:30 p.m. on weekdays. On this day, Pui-Fun's husband dropped her
off at work at about 8:30 a.m. As she was working with several co-workers in
other branches of the company located in Chicago IL, Maywood NJ and Charlotte
NC to meet the delivery deadline of a product, she regularly checked the company
Web pages on which important news and updates about the project were posted.
Further, she exchanged several email messages with these co-workers throughout
the day since there might be last-minute debugging and testing tricks she needed
to know for preparing the final shipment of the product to the client. On the diary
day, Pui-Fun started her day at 8:35 a.m. with a brief session of Web browsing at
the Chicago site. Then, shortly after, she browsed more extensively to make sure
she did not miss anything important, covering the Chicago, Maywood, and Char-
lotte sites. After she got all the necessary information, she continued to work on
the project. She only had a brieflunch break at her workplace at about 12:30 p.m.
Around 2:00 p.m., she came across a technical problem which required her to
log onto the project's information site in Chicago again. In late aftemoon, she
conducted another round of routine browsing of the Charlotte, Chicago, and
Maywood sites. Because time is so limited for meeting the project's deadline, Pui-
Fun did not go out for dinner on this day. Instead, her husband brought her dinner
from a fast-food chain at about 6:30 p.m. She stayed at her workplace for the
whole day and was off at about 12:00 midnight. Because company policy restricts
 Human Extensibility and Individual Hybrid-accessibility 249

employees' private use of the Internet at work, she rarely reads personal email
messages or browses her favorite Web pages during work hours. She usually does
so before her formal work hours begin or in the twenty minutes or so after she is
formally off from work while waiting to be picked up by her husband. On this
day, she browsed so me newspaper and magazine Web pages hosted in Hong Kong
while her husband was on the way to pick her up.

(b) Procedures. Although Pui-Fun's diary day is an extreme example, which

only involves a very limited range of activities, it can still be used to implement
and illustrate procedures for constructing the multi-sc ale 3D extensibility diagram.
As a preliminary attempt to represent activities in both the physical world and
cyberspace, the 3D space-time paths constructed in this paper only include her
Web activities. Email messages received or sent by her on the diary day are not
represented in the diagram since the time at which these messages were read can-
not be determined from the email directory.
The first step is to determine the most appropriate spatial scales and to extract
the relevant base maps from various digital sources. For the case of Pui-Fun, base
maps of three spatial scales were prepared. First, a map of FrankIin County, Ohio,
and a regional map of 15 U.S. states in the northeastern part ofthe country were
extracted from Wessex's First Street geographie database. Franklin County is the
horne county of Pui-Fun, whereas the U.S. region extracted will be used to locate
the three American cities involved in her cyber-transactions - Chicago, Maywood,
and Charlotte. At the global scale, the world map layer was derived from the digi-
tal map data that came with ArcView GIS (many high latitude regions and islands
in the world map layer were eliminated to improve visual clarity). As the best pro-
jection at a particular scale depends largely on the specific objectives at hand (e.g.,
minimum distortion in shapes or accurate distance between locations), coordinates
in these three map layers are in unprojected decimal degrees.
As Pui-Fun's cyber-transactions were all undertaken at her workplace, these
three map layers were registered to this location. The regional and world maps
were then transformed into scales that allow them to be displayed in sizes com-
mensurate with that of FrankIin County. Results of these transformations in two
dimensions are shown in Figure 14.1, where the location of Pui-Fun's workplace
is identified by the epicenter symbol, which is the same point no matter which of
the three map scales is used. At the locallevel, the end points of the line connect-
ing Pui-Fun's horne and workplace shows where she lives and works in FrankIin
County. At the regional level, her cyber-activities on the diary day involved Web
sites located in Chicago, Maywood, and Charlotte (as indicated by the dashed
lines). At the global level, she visited Web sites hosted in Hong Kong in the Peo-
ple's Republic of China. After the map-scale transformation, these three 2D map
layers are converted to 3D shape files and added to an ArcView 3D Analyst scene
as 3D themes. After preparing these map layers, 3D shape files for Pui-Fun's
space-time paths were generated using Avenue scripts and added to the 3D scene.
These procedures created the multi-scale extensibility diagram shown in Figure
14.2.
250 M-PKwan

Figure 14.1. A two-dimensional representation ofthe three map layers after transformation.

(c) 3D Visualization. This multi-sc ale representation overcomes the limitations

of the two methods discussed in the last section. Using this GIS-based extensibil-
ity diagram, the researcher can visualize all transactions at different spatial scales
at the same time without need for multiple graphical windows (Figure 14.2). The
visualization functions available in ArcView 3D Analyst also enable one to ex-
plore interactively with the 3D scene in a very flexible manner (e.g., the scene is
visible in real-time while zooming in and out, or rotating). This allows for the se-
lection of the best viewing angle and is a very helpful feature especially when
visualizing very complex space-time paths. To focus only on one type of transac-
tion or activity at a particular spatial scale, one can select the relevant themes for
display while keeping the other themes tumed off. Further, when the three sets of
paths and base maps are displayed at the same time, they can be color coded to
facilitate visualization. In the original color 3D scene, each segment of the space-
time paths are represented using the same color as the relevant base map (e.g.,
blue for Franklin County and local activities), conveying a rather clear picture of
the spatiality and temporal rhythm characterizing Pui-Fun's activities on the diary
day. But, in the black-and-white version presented in Figure 14.2, spike lines are
used to identifY the location involved in each transaction.
 Hybrid-accessibility 251
Human Extensibility and Individual

Hang Kong

== == == == == =: i

Charlotte Maywood
Chicago
e paths.
esentation ofth e individual's space-tim
Figure 14.2. A multi-scale, 3D repr
 252 M-PKw an

9 --
--..-:::.,. .........
-- ............ ....
...... , .... . . .
--

.
Figure 14.3. An extensibility diagram of a set of hypothetical activities

the po-
Given the limited range of Pui-Fun's activities on the actual diary day,
so me hy-
tential of this GIS-based extensibility diagram is further explored using
transact ions at
pothetical activities. The objective is to show how various types of
as an exampl e and
different spatial scales can be represented. Using Pui-Fun
 Human Extensibility and Individual Hybrid-accessibility 253

partly following Adams' (1995) scheme, Figure 14.3 shows five types ofactivities
undertaken on a particular day. On this day, Pui-Fun worked from 8:30 a.m. to
5:30 p.m., and had a one-hour lunch break at a nearby restaurant (c on the dia-
gram). She subscribes to a Web-casting service where news items are continu-
ously forwarded to her Web browser. On this day, she read some news about
Yugoslavia, South Africa, and Nashville, TN (a on the diagram) before she started
work. An hour later she sent an email message to three friends located in Hong
Kong, Chicago, and Vancouver (b). The friend in Chicago read the email two
hours later and the friend in Vancouver read the email five hours later. The friend
in Hong Kong read the email 13 hours later and replied immediately (e). The reply
message from this friend, however, was read at 2:00 a.m. at Pui-Fun's horne (g).
In the afternoon, Pui-Fun browsed Web pages hosted in New York, Charlotte, and
Anchorage in Alaska (d). She was off from work at 5:30 p.m. and spent the eve-
ning at horne. At 9:00 p.m. she started an ICQ (real-time chat) session with friends
in Tokyo, Melbourne, Memphis TN, and Dublin OH (f on the diagram).
As shown in Figure 14.3, very complex interaction patterns in cyberspace can be
represented using multiple and branching space-time paths. These inc1ude tempo-
rally coincidental (real-time chat) and temporally non-coincidental (e-mailing)
interactions; one-way radial (Web browsing), two-way dyadic or radial (e-
mailing), and multi-way (chat) interactions; in-coming (Web casting) and out-
going (e-mailing) transactions (Adams 1998, Janelle 1995). The method is thus
capable of capturing the spatial, temporal, and morphological complexities of a
person's extensibility in cyberspace.

14.6 Conclusion and Discussion

Many characteristics of human extensibility can be represented using the multi-

scale 3D GIS method presented in this paper. With appropriate time-space scaling,
the extensibility diagram can reflect spatial relationships between different loca-
tions as a result of cyber-transactions. For example, the world can be as c10se as a
few seconds away while it takes longer to reach one's next door neighbor. This
kind of time-space inversion can be revealed and examined using this method.
Further, although the focus of this paper is on the individual, the method itself can
be used to represent interactions among many individuals. Thus, it allows for the
study of social networks in space-time. The method, however, is limited by the
capabilities of current GIS. For instance, current vector GIS can only represent
objects as discrete entities with c1ear-cut boundaries, such as the straight-line rep-
resentation of individual space-time paths. They cannot represent the fluidity of
personal boundaries as fuzzy zones. It is also difficult to incorporate any qualita-
tive information to account for the subjective experience of individuals in their
everyday life. Future research on 3D GIS methods needs to explore how these
limitations can be overcome.
254 M-P Kwan

There are other difficulties in implementing the method. First, since detailed
data of an individual's activities in physical and cyberspace space are needed for
constructing the 3D extensibility diagram, data availability will be a major issue.
The problem is especially serious for transactions in cyberspace, as there are not
only many different types of transactions to be recorded (e.g., e-mailing, Web
browsing, Web casting, real-time chat, etc.), there is also no readily available
means for recording these transactions. Data collected by commercially available
server-side logging programs (used frequently by computer network administra-
tors) are not adequate for this kind of study. Future research needs to investigate
how to record these activities on the client side. This would involve a major diffi-
culty regarding personal privacy: Will individuals be willing to disclose this kind
of personal information in such detail?
Second, even when data about cyber-transactions are available, the location of a
particular host on the Internet may be difficult to identify since IP addresses may
not map onto geographical locations uniquely. Lastly, although individual space-
time paths can be represented using this 3D GIS method, it renders the computa-
ti on of space-time accessibility measures much more difficult. Given that cyber-
transactions involve multiple spatial and temporal scales, and may include multi-
ple and branching space-time paths, how can the space-time prism be identified?
When fixed activities (such as work) may be ongoing with other flexible activities,
which may involve far-away locations, how should space-time accessibility meas-
ures be computed? Each of these areas requires further research.

Acknowledgements

The support of an NCGIA Varenius seed grant for this research is gratefully acknowledged.
I also thank the person who provided the aetivity data for this study.

References
Adams, P.C. 1995. A reconsideration of personal boundaries in space-time. Annals o/the
Assoeiation 0/ Ameriean Geographers 85(2):267-85.
Adams, P.C. 1998. Network topologies and virtual place. Annals 0/ the Assoeiation 0/
Ameriean Geographers, 88(1 ):88-1 06.
Bums, L. 1979. Transportation, Temporal, and Spatial Components of Aceessibility. Lex-
ington, MA: Lexington Books.
Carlstein, T. 1982. Time Resourees, Society and Eeology: On the Capacity for Human
Interaction in Space and Time in Preindustrial Society. Lund Studies in Geography, Se-
ries B, Human Geography NO.49. Lund, Sweden: CWK Gleerup.
Couclelis, H. 1994. Spatial technologies. Environment and Planning B 21: 142-43.
Forer, P. 1998. Geometrie approaches to the nexus of time, space, and microproeess: im-
plementing a practieal model for mundane socio-spatial systems. In Egenhofer, M.J. and
Golledge, R.G. (eds.) Spatial and Temporal Reasoning in Geographie Information Sys-
tems. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 171-90.
Giddens, A. 1984. The Constitution of Socity: Outline of the Theory of Structuration. Ber-
keley, CA: University ofCalifomia Press.
 Human Extensibility and Individual Hybrid-accessibility 255

Hägerstrand, T. 1970. What about people in regional science? Papers ofthe Regional Sei-
ence Association, 24:7-21.
Hanson, S., Kominiak, T. and Carlin, S. 1997. Assessing the impact of location on
women's labor market outcomes: A methodological exploration. Geographical Analysis
29:281-97.
Hodge, D. 1997. Accessibility-related issues. Journal ofTransport Geography 5(1):33-4.
Huisman, O. and Forer, P. 1998. Towards a geometrie framework for modelling space-time
opportunities and interaction potential. Paper presented at the International Geographical
Union, Commission on ModeIIing Geographical Systems Meeting (IGU-CMGS), 28-29
August, Lisbon, Portugal.
JaneIIe, D. 1973. Measuring human extensibility in a shrinking world. Journal ofGeogra-
phy 72(5):8-15.
JaneIIe, D. 1995. Metropolitan expansion, telecommuting, and transportation. In Hanson, S.
(ed.) The Geography ofUrban Transportation, ]"'1 edition. New York: Guilford, 407-34.
Kwan, M-P. 1998. Space-time and integral measures of individual accessibility: A com-
parative analysis using a point-based framework. Geographical Analysis, 30(3):191-216.
Kwan, M-P. 1999a. Gender and individual access to urban opportunities: A study using
space-time measures. The Professional Geographer 51(2):210-27.
Kwan, M-P. 1999b. Gender, the home-work link, and spaee-time patterns of non-
employment activities. Economic Geography 75(4).
Kwan, M.P. 2000. Cyberspatial eognition and individual aceess to information: The behav-
ioral foundation of cyber-geography. Environment and Planning B, in press.
Kwan, M-P. and Hong, X-D. 1998. Network-based constraints-oriented choice set forma-
tion using GIS. Geographical Systems, 5:139-62.
Lenntorp, B. 1976. Paths in Time-Space Environments: A Time Geographie Study of
Movement Possibilities of Individuals. Lund Studies in Geography, Series B, Human Ge-
ography No.44. Lund, Sweden: CWK Gleerup.
MathSoft. 1997 S-Plus User's Guide. Seattle, WA: MathSoft, Inc.
MCI, 1998. Internet Trafik Report <http://traffic.meLcom/>
MIDS, 1998. The MIDS Internet Weather Report (IWR) <http://www.mids.org/weather/
us/htmldir/>
MilIer, H.J. 1991. ModeIIing aceessibility using spaee-time prism concepts within geo-
graphie information systems. International Journal ofGeographical Information Systems
5(3):287-301.
Miller H.J. 1999. Measuring spaee-time aeeessibility benefits within transportation net-
works: Basic theory and eomputational proeedures. Geographical Analysis 31(2):187-
212.
Pred, A. and Palm, R. 1978. The status of Ameriean women: A time-geographie view. In
Lanegran, D.A. and Palm R. (eds.). An Invitation to Geography. New York: MeGraw-
HiII,99-109.
Rose, G. 1993. Feminism and Geography: The Limits ofGeographical Knowledge. Min-
neapolis, MN: University ofMinnesota Press.
Seott, L.M. 1999. Abstract - Evaluating intra-metropolitan aeeessibility in the information
age: Operational issues, objeetives, and implementation. In JaneIIe, D.G. and Hodge,
D.C. (eds.) Measuring and Representing Accessibility in the Information Age, Research
Conference Report. Santa Barbara CA: NCGIA, 30-31.
256 M-P Kwan

Talen, E. 1997. The soda! equity of urban service distribution: An exploration of park ac-
cess in Pueblo, Colorado, and Macon, Georgia. Urban Geography, 18(6):521-41.
Talen, E. and AnseIin L. 1998. Assessing spatial equity: An evaluation of measures of ac-
cessibility to public playgrounds. Environment and Planning A, 30:595-613.
Thrift, N. 1985. Flies and germs: a geography of knowledge. In Gregory, D. and Urry, J.
(eds) Social Relations and Spatial Structures. New York: St. Martin' s Press, 366-403.
Villoria, O.G. 1989. An Operational Measure of Individual Accessibility for Use in the
Study of Travel-Activity Patterns. Ph.D. dissertation, Graduate School of the Ohio State
University.
 Part 111

Societal Issues
15 Accessibility and Societal Issues
in the Information Age

Mark I. Wilson

Department of GeographylUrban and Regional Planning, and Institute for Public Policy and
Social Research, Michigan State University, East Lansing MI 48824-1111, USA.
Email: wilsonmm@pilot.msu.edu

15.1 Introduction

The preeminence of information as the foundation for the economies of most

countries is often attributed to the technical possibilities available through com-
puters and telecommunications. The information age is often presented as a prod-
uct of the marriage of technologies and the triumph of advances in electronics and
engineering. Increasingly apparent, however, is the need to incorporate social
elements into our understanding of information technologies and the information
age. By addressing the social context for these new technologies, discussion
moves from the realm of what is technically feasible, to issues of access, equity,
community, and identity. The theme of Part III is how to revisit the weIl devel-
oped theoretical foundation established for accessibility in transportation research,
and to advance this foundation to understand the social impact of electronic me-
dia, such as computers, the Internet, and Geographie Information Systems.
The technical realm of the information age has tended to focus on electronic
potential and possibilities. In many cases, the technical advance is accompanied
by the assumption that technological constraints are the primary barriers to be con-
fronted in the information age. This view is implicit in global maps that show
Internet access by country (see Chap 7 by Sui), with only a few countries in 1999
not having Internet access (MIDS 1999). The advertising and rhetoric of the tele-
communications industry offers a similar view, with low earth- orbit satellite sys-
tems allowing owners of Iridium telephones to call from anywhere on the planet.
Global roaming options on mobile phones also affer the warld in electronic con-
venience. In these cases, the technical possibilities are indeed impressive, and the
ability to call horne from almost anywhere represents a great advance on condi-
tions a decade or two ago. The gulf remains, however, between the technically
possible and the socially feasible.
Contributing to the scholarly challenge are the characteristics of the information
technologies that we study. First, the pace of growth makes it difficult to identifY
the component elements and uses of technologies, such as the Internet, World
Wide Web, and GIS; and, the information that is available tends to date quickly.
260 M.l. Wilson

Second, information technologies and their services are not spatially confined, but
are a global medium that appears to be aspatial by avoiding identity with a place
or country. Third, as a new phenomenon, there is a lack of consensus about what
to analyze and measure about the new technologies. Finally, much of the analysis
and measurement of IT services is by individuals, firms, and agencies with a
vested interest in the results, raising issues about standards and impartiality. Given
these conditions, it is important for scholars to explore ways to understand, meas-
ure, and inform others about the nature ofthese new media.
In many ways the technical challenges are waning compared to the social chal-
lenges of access for the information society. World maps may showalmost uni-
versal access, but there is a significant difference between access being possible
and people being able to access the Internet if and when they wish. The non-
technical challenges are many if access is considered integral to membership in
the information society. Social factors that are important include the relevance of
access to many whose daily life may not yet require access; and, education and
experience in using information technologies. Economic factors, such as afforda-
bility; use in employment; and the growing importance of information-based
economies shape access to information technologies. Political factors also 100m
large, with individuals having the freedom to access information; with regulatory
environments supporting access and affordability of access; and government gen-
erating, managing, and using information effectively.
While not a unique element in this volume, Part III focuses specifically on the
social context in which information technologies are used and developed. Implicit
in this analysis is an awareness of the need to understand how society and tech-
nology meet and interact. In fact, the political, economic, and social dimensions of
information technology use may weil represent a far more complex and controver-
sial arena for IT development than the technical barriers that scientists confront
when advancing information technologies. As William Mitchell (1995, 5) notes in
City ofBits,

... the most crucial task before us is not one of putting in place the digital plumbing of
broadband communications links and associated electronic appliances (which we will
certainly get anyway), nor even of producing electronically deliverable 'content,' but
rather one of imagining and creating digitally mediated environments for the kinds of
lives that we will want to lead and the sorts of communities that we will want to have.

Mitchell's comment is also areminder that technology is not solely an external

force, but one that is shaped by the actions of many in our society - individuals,
corporations, and government -- and that technology is not necessarily inevitable,
but a product reflecting many choices and decisions.
Part III introduces the major issues arising from the Asilomar meeting on Meas-
uring and Representing Accessibility in the Information Age, with emphasis on the
social dimensions that form the context for development and use of information
technologies. Before identifying some of the specific social issues addressed, it is
 Accessibility and Societa1 Issues 261

valuable to note some of the key questions that need to be considered when assess-
ing the broader use of information technologies.

• How do information technologies change their host societies? The tendency

to view technology as external to social forces misses many important issues,
inc\uding the reverse relationship of how societies shape the technologies
they adopt. This reverse relationship raises many normative questions and
demands that we place more emphasis on understanding how people gather
and acquire knowledge, and how they evaluate and act on that knowledge.
• What institutions shape the development of information technologies? The
infrastructure of the information age sterns from the actions of many actors
with different and sometimes conflicting goals. The motivations of research-
ers, corporations (equipment manufacturers, software developers, service
providers, etc.), government agencies, users, communities, and social move-
ments can all vary both within and across these categories.
• What factors determine the use ofinformation technologies? Use ofIT can be
necessary for work, or desired by individuals, for interaction (email, video-
conferencing, and education) and information (employer intranets and the
World Wide Web). Central to this factor is the ability of individuals to use in-
formation technologies, as well as a willingness to use IT. The rhetoric of
technological determinism does not acknowledge the needs or wishes of
those who do not like or want to use IT.

In the context of this volume, the core questions and issues revolve around ac-
cess to information technologies. At the individual level, this type of access con-
cerns (1) the availability of a nearby computer and the physical ability to use in-
formation technologies by knowing how to use a computer and to access the
Internet; (2) having the resources to buy or rent a computer and to afford Internet
access; and (3) having the freedom to interact with others electronically, or to
view material of interest. As information technology evolves, so me of these con-
cerns will be accommodated. However, there will always be a need to focus on the
broader implications of information technology to social change. The chapters in
Part II of this book highlight five general constructs that weigh heavily in any con-
sideration of the societal implications of IT - social context; equity; rights; time;
and processes.
262 M.1. Wilson

15.2 Constructs for Weigbing tbe Social Implications ofIT

Social Context

The power of information technologies needs to be addressed in social and histori-

cal context. In addition to the actors and processes shaping Ir, already noted, there
is also a set of issues associated with the value of access. What is the value and
use of access, and, in particular, how useful is access to information technologies
and for whom? We need to question the fundamental value of access to Ir rather
than moving directly to the assumption that it is or will be all encompassing.
There are priorities and opportunity costs associated with improving access to
information technologies. As part of that process, there is a need to identify and to
understand the interests and voices that are heard about Ir control, and those
voices that are not heard. Also noteworthy is the role of information technologies
in encouraging heterogeneity and diversity, associated with concern about the
ability of Ir and GIS to force homogenization and to undermine diversity. Do in-
formation technologies require a common language that pro duces a common
mindset? And does it imply one frame of thought and one reality? In Chapter 19,
Robert Mugerauer considers the possibility of alternative spatial configurations to
capture qualitative elements of space. In particular, to harness the power of Geo-
graphie Information Systems to allow different groups and interests to define their
own visions of space and location. He calls for empowerment though the ability to
use GIS by each group or interest to define its own world and he notes that

This does not mean that the conventional notions of accessibility no longer apply. It
simply reflects the fact that accessibility is an intrinsically manifold notion, encom-
passing several definitions that can co-exist and not be reducible to each other.

This need for diverse interpretations of accessibility is also captured in Chapter

17, where Sylvie Occelli concentrates on the urban context for information tech-
nology and accessibility. She calls for an extension of the accessibility concept to
inc1ude a temporal dimension, and for regarding access as a resource for urban
populations. The commonly used concepts of accessibility are seen as being sur-
passed by increasingly complex urban societies that deserve more sophisticated
conceptualizations of accessibility.

Equity

Equity considerations are increasingly important as the ability to gain access im-
proves and the cost of access decreases. If access, control, and management of
information are the foundations of economic growth and development, then the
core equity considerations become: Who has access? And is access possible for
those who desire access? While fundamentally an economic issue of affordability,
 Accessibility and Societal Issues 263

the ability to access is also determined by government actions to shape the policies
of service providers, or to make access possible through schools, libraries, and
other public facilities. Emerging from equity concerns are research issues sur-
rounding the relationship between access to information technologies, informa-
tion, and economic and political power. Also relevant is an understanding of how
inequalities change over time, and the ways in which IT affects the rate and direc-
tion of change in an information economy.
Beyond the affordability issues of access lie a number of geographic elements,
as access has long been seen as a question of physical proximity. On one level,
proximity to Internet service remains a crucial factor. Can I access the Internet
where I live or work and at what cost? At a broader level, however, Internet access
can reduce the physical barriers that have prevailed in the past. Information tech-
nologies may be able to remove the barriers that have defined peripherallocations
to date. For example, Ireland's peripheral geography has been overcome in many
ways through public and private investment in infrastructure, education, and train-
ing. The shift from peripheral geography to electronic centrality carries great
benefits to the people and countries that are able to engineer relocation to elec-
tronic space.
Susan Hanson explores how spatial technologies affect equity in Chapter 16. In
particular, she goes beyond issues of physical access to information technologies
to address the social importance of information flows and their form. She calls for
an understanding of how new technologies intersect with existing social relations
in building and maintaining social equity, and she raises important questions about
the social value of information technologies in comparison to face-to-face rela-
tionships and communication through existing community networks.

Rights

The discussion of rights recognizes a broader domain for the importance of free-
dom and the role of ethics in electronic interaction and access. Issues of right to
access and use oftechnology and information are based in political and social con-
text. The choices that societies make in relationship to utilitarian or communi-
tarian systems raise several categories of core issues that warrant research atten-
tion.
First, the legal right to access information focuses on the existing constitutional
and legal conditions in each country. The introduction of new technologies, how-
ever, raises again in many countries the internal political debate about what free-
dom is and what rights citizens should expect. Rights involve several elements: (1)
right to speak; (2) should there also exist a right to be heard? (3) right to informa-
tion access, and the shifting to private information from public information
sources and control; (4) is there a right to receive a response from decision mak-
ers? and (5) what are the ethics ofhaving decision-makers lurk but not respond to
critical Web forums?
264 M.l. Wilson

Second, the legal rights to access are not easily bounded, either legally or so-
cially. Increasingly important is the boundary between public and private in an
electronic world. Restriction of access to information may help or hurt people,
presenting an obligation to balance needs for access and privacy, and to be aware
ofthe information haves and have nots.
Third, rights of access and presentation of information also incorporate lan-
guage/dialect and user community issues. The Internet offers the ability to express
ideas in far more languages and dialects than possible using print or broadcast
media. At the same time, the dominance of English and of a small group of online
languages presents a reduction in choice for access to information.
Harlan Onsrud focuses on one of the important issues over rights in Chapter 18.
He chronicles how the legal context for rights of access to information is changing
in the United States. In particular, Onsrud is concerned about the erosion of access
to public information sources for citizens. The diminishment of legal access comes
from aseries of legislative changes that are often buried deep within legislative
bills. He observes (Chapter 18, 315) that the rights to access public information
gained in the past are slowly being lost as ' ... publishers and government agencies
use the threat of digital technology as an opportunity to limit the rights of citizens
to access information'.

Time

The time dimension cuts across many of the chapters in this book. The ability of
information technologies to reduce or end the friction of distance leaves time as
one of the few remaining baITiers to interaction globally. The importance of meas-
uring and representing accessibility is to permit individuals and institutions to ex-
tract greater value from time, which can be expressed as the currency of the new
economy, albeit a limited and finite resource. Andrew Harvey and Paul Macnab
investigate an important aspect of this theme in Part 11 (Chapter 9), suggesting that
time remains one of the key challenges to interaction now that distance can be
overcome electronically. Using a case study of Canada and its six time zones, the
constraints of interaction are defined clearly by temporal coincidence, and by the
limited windows of real time communication possible at any one time. The socie-
tal increase in types of activities (both virtual and real) subjects individuals and
institutions to allocation decisions.

Processes

The underlying theme of this research direction is to identifY how social, eco-
nomic, and political institutions in different places and times shape access to and
use of information technologies. The importance of institutional players requires
us to understand a range offactors. These include (1) how different types ofinsti-
tutions set agendas for information use and control; (2) how decision making by
 Accessibility and Societal Issues 265

these institutions establishes the information infrastructure; and, (3) how relation-
ships emerge between accessibility and social, economic, and political power.
Social processes are also affected by information technologies, challenging schol-
ars to explore the ways that people construct their social networks in an informa-
tion age (a question addressed by Hanson in Chapter 16), and to investigate
whether or not these new technologies require or generate new forms of social
capital. Finally, it is important to seek understanding of how the spatial forces
shaping the use of IT relate to and generate differences and similarities across
places and spaces - a theme acknowledged throughout this book.

15.3 Conclusion

In many ways the technical challenges of information technologies are part of a

larger challenge, with social factors of increasing importance. There may only be
one way for physical properties to be seen or understood, but there are many dif-
fering interpretations of the way information technology affects our lives. One
clear direction emerging from the chapters in Part III is the need to remind our-
selves that social forces can and should shape the technologies; we must not ac-
cept a given system, network, or service without questioning its impact.

References
Matrix Information and Directory Services Inc. 1999. http://www.mids.org!
MitcheII, W. 1995. City 0/ Bits: Space, Place, and the ln/obahn. Cambridge MA: MIT
Press.
16 Reconceptualizing Accessibility

Susan Hanson
School of Geography, Clark University, 950 Main Street, Worcester MA 01610, USA.
Email: shanson@c1arku.edu

16.1 Introduction

One of my bad habits - one that I probably shouldn't confess to - is clipping

newspaper articles and squirreling them away, solelyon the basis of speed reading
the headline and maybe a paragraph or two. If those few words suggest that some-
thing in the piece might possibly sometime be remotely related to anything I'm
teaching or might ever teach, it gets filed away. One such piece, entitled 'Informa-
tion Inequality' (1997, p. Ai4), appeared about a year aga on the editorial page of
the Boston Globe. Thinking it dealt with unequal access to information technology
(lT), I slipped it ,into my IT folder. When I finally read it carefully a short time
ago, I was fascinated to find that the message touched hardly at all on the Internet.
The editorial's touchstone was a statement that cultural critic Stanley Crouch had
made that week on a local radio show: 'Talking about racial justice, or any justice,
means tal king about equal access to information.' (That was enough to activate the
scissors.)
The editors go on to point out that the information people need access to relates
primarily to people's immediate concerns like health ('what to do about a child's
ear infection') and employment (what jobs are available and what training do they
require). The editors' main point is that such information is exchanged most effec-
tively through casual personal contact; but those contacts must cross the divide
between information haves and information have nots if the information sharing is
to 'dismantle information segregation.' For many reasons, including residential
segregation, such divide-bridging personal contacts are unlikely in the course of
everyday American life. After mentioning a few Boston-area initiatives aimed
specifically at increasing the likelihood of such contacts, the editors conclude that
these initiatives ...

need the resources to do more. Web sites can be packed with facts, but they haven't yet
replaced the old-fashioned, labor-intensive - but more effective - approach offace-to-
face talk. It's hard to champion anational conversation on ignorance. But talking about
what we don't know is an inevitable first step toward breaking down nation-crippling
information barriers.
268 S. Hanson

I begin with this editorial because it highlights what I believe is the focus of this
book - the role of information in access - and it raises (but doesn't really address)
questions about the effectiveness of IT in reducing information inequality and in
increasing access. In drawing attention to local initiatives for increasing personal
interactions between information haves and have nots (all of these initiatives em-
phasize face-to-face contact) and in playing down the role of the Web, this edito-
rial is a cautionary tale for technophiles. I want to use this cautionary tale as a
starting point for rethinking models and measures of accessibility in an informa-
tion age. My goals are

(1) briefly to review traditional (pre-virtual) conceptualizations and measures of

accessibility, in order
(2) to point to key silences and omissions - especially the role of information - in
these traditional approaches,
(3) to present the argument some scholars and policymakers advance that IT is
the ideal way to fill these gaps,
(4) to examine how information relates to access and, in this context, how all
information is not created equal, and
(5) to consider measures of accessibility that incorporate diverse, heterogeneous
information sources.

I am particularly interested in people's access to paid employment, and most of

the examples 1'11 use will have to do with access to jobs. I focus on employment
because in contemporary North America, paid work is so central to issues of
power, identity, and status - in short to economic, social, and political life. More-
over, employment relations are embedded in everyday life, including power dy-
namics within households, gender ideologies, cultural norms, and daily travel-
activity patterns. Throughout this essay, my central concern is with equity and
with how new spatial technologies might exacerbate socio-spatial inequities in
access.

16.2 Pre-virtual Accessibility

The idea of accessibility has to do with reachability, obtainability, attainability. In

the pre-virtual, non-virtual world, we geographers traditionally thought of access
in terms of the ability of people to reach and use, or take advantage of, spatially
dispersed activity sites providing jobs, goods, and services such as medical care,
recreation, and entertainment. Access in the material world is closely linked up
with mobility; as distances between activity sites in U.S. cities have grown, acces-
sibility has come to require more (motorized) mobility. Accessibility has always
been considered essential to living in a society where land uses are specialized and
 Reconceptualizing Accessibility 269

spatially separated. For this reason, accessibility has always been thought of as a
good thing: the more accessibility an individual, group, or area has, the better.
Society worries about those with limited access, and although some observers
have begun to wonder if there might not be such a thing as too much mobility, I
have not yet heard anyone voice the idea that some groups might suffer from too
much accessibility.
Measures of accessibility typically involve counts of the number of opportuni-
ties (number of jobs, square feet of retail space) discounted by distance or some
other measure of impedance. Such measures can be ca1culated for an origin zone,
an individual occupying one or more trip origin points (horne, workplace), or any
number of people whose trip origins have been superimposed on a common point.
In the pre-virtual sense of the word, then, accessibility refers to the theoretical
ability of a person to reach and use dispersed points or zones on aplane (usually
urban space); access measures capture the location of an individual vis avis the
location of a set of potential destinations. Such measures are reaUy measures of
interaction potential. All one needs to realize access, according to this view, is
mobility.

16.3 Silenees

Despite the utility of these measures in revealing access inequalities and inequities
among groups and locations, the measures are limited by their inevitable silences
- the dimensions of accessibility they overlook, neglect, and omit. Traditional
accessibility measures provide rather narrow interpretations of core questions such
as, Do you know what's available at potential destinations? Do you value what's
there? Is it feasible for you to get to these locations and to participate in the activi-
ties there? Do you have social and cultural (not to mention geographic) connec-
tions to facilitate access to those sites?l In traditional accessibility measures, if a
destination is located c10se by, it is considered accessible. As someone at the
Varenius Conference noted, does someone who lives near a library but does not
read or near an airport but does not fly have access? Traditional measures would
answer yes.
Traditional measures of access neglect the fact that people are embedded in
networks of social relations through which information is exchanged, networks
that shape norms and values. That is, traditional approaches do not consider the
informational, social, and cultural dimensions of accessibility. All of these affect a
person's ability and willingness to leave an origin, ability and willingness to trav-
erse distance, and ability to enter and participate at adestination. A job seeker
needs information about current job openings, the locations of those jobs, and the

I Some of these and other silences are addressed in time geography. One example is the
ho urs when stores and other activity sites are open.
270 S. Hanson

qualifications (education, expertise, and experience) each employer is seeking; she

might also want to know how women and visible minorities are treated in each
workplace and how 'family friendly' each workplace iso For their part, employers
might seriously consider only potential employees who possess certain social,
geographic, and cultural attributes (e.g., some employers prefer fe male workers
who are single, who do not live in certain stigmatized neighborhoods, and who do
not have exceedingly long, multi-colored fingernails). Clearly, access requires
more than proximity and/or mobility, and information is a key ingredient missing
from traditional accessibility measures.

16.4 The IT -to-the-Rescue Argument

Recognizing the central role that information plays in access, some scholars and
policymakers have heralded information technology (especially the Internet and
the Web) as a, if not the, solution to the problem of poor accessibility. Harlan
Cleveland (1985), for example, predicted that widespread availability of informa-
tion would break down baITiers of ignorance and secrecy, eroding hierarchies,
increasing participation, and enlarging democracy. He saw the information revolu-
tion as undermining hierarchies of power based on control, hierarchies of influ-
ence based on secrecy, hierarchies of class based on ownership, of privilege based
on early access to resources, and of politics based on geography. One of the main
ways that IT acquires such power is by erasing the friction of distance, thereby
providing access without mobility. IT is thus seen as the means to overcome the
information segregation that derives in large part from residential segregation.
Stephen Graham (1998) and others (e.g., Hanson 1998) have debunked such
technological determinism as unduly neglecting the lived realities of everyday life
in a material world. In particular, utopian visions of equal access in cyberspace
overlook the pervasiveness and power of the diverse place-based communities in
which the majority of the globe's (and yes, even North America's) citizens live
relatively grounded, even circumscribed, lives, with very real consequences for
access to opportunities. Such utopian visions hint that IT will replace distance-
based (and distance-biased) interactions, diluting their power to shape social life
and ultimately rendering distance and geography obsolete. In my view, such vi-
sions distract attention from the real and difficult job of trying to understand how
IT is complementing and interacting in complex and unforeseen ways with
grounded social, economic, and political exchanges. Precisely because accessibil-
ity requires more than proximity andlor mobility, eliminating the friction of dis-
tance will not yield access.
 Reconceptualizing Accessibility 271

16.5 Information and Access

Let us assurne that everyone has access to the Web and therefore to almost limit-
less information. What does this mean for accessibility? Shannon and Weaver's
classic information theory (1949) hinges on the idea that information reduces un-
certainty. That is, an item of communication (a word, musical note, phrase, memo,
medical test result) can be considered informative only when it reduces uncer-
tainty. Shannon and Weaver show, moreover, that information's uncertainty-
reducing role is context dependent: an additional musical note in a score reduces
uncertainty only in the larger context of the particular musical passage.
This means that the same piece of information takes on different meanings in
different contexts. Examples abound of words that mean entirely different things
in different contexts. The Catalan word 'prou' means either 'yes, OK' or 'no, not
OK' depending on context and intonation; the essence of Barbara Kingsolver's
new book (1998) turns on a word in Kikongo, 'bangala,' which can mean 'pre-
cious dear' or 'poisonwood tree' depending also on context and intonation. It is
obvious and widely recognized that virtual communication (VC) is not the same as
face-to-face (F2F) communication precisely because it (VC) is decontextualized. 2
The medium of communication and the source of information affect the nature,
quality, and reliability of what's communicated and therefore the degree to which
it reduces uncertainty. Shannon and Weaver's insights about information raise
questions about the information available on the Web. To what extent, and in what
circumstances, is cyber information really informative in that it reduces uncer-
tainty?
I believe that answering this question (and therefore understanding how infor-
mation affects access) will require closely examining how IT intersects with other
forms of communication in place-based communities. In the pre-virtual world,
most people found jobs and most employers found workers through informal per-
sonal contact, not through formal information sources such as employment agen-
cies or newspaper ads. And for good reasons: from the job seeker's perspective,
key information about a potential work site (e.g., what it's really like to work
there) simply does not appear - and never will appear - in formal job advertise-
ments. From the employer's perspective, relying on word ofmouth is cheaper than
using formal advertising outIets and has a higher probability of resulting in the

2 Sproull and Kiesler (1993) have studied how VC changes communication in work organi-
zations and argue that it can lead to more egalitarian patterns of information sharing. But
VC can also lead to more hierarchy and can create more barriers and balkanization (Jones
1995; Van AIstyne & Brynjolfsson 1996). These effects emerge not only because people's
access to IT itselfvaries but also because VC allows us more choice regarding with whom
we interact; it allows each of us to customize our social interactions based on shared in-
terests, thereby narrowing the range of diversity with which we engage. As Van AIstyne
and Brynjolfsson note, however, balkanization is not inevitable; we can 'use IT to select
diverse contacts as easily as specialized contacts' (1996, 1480).
272 S. Hanson

hire of a more productive worker. In each case, the screening function of personal
networks (those of employers and existing employees) increases the likelihood
that a particular employer-worker match is a good one. In short, personal contacts
are effective at reducing uncertainty. Thus studies of labor market processes re-
peatedly find that the information that flows through social networks and everyday
personal interactions plays a pivotal role in shaping people's access to jobs, affect-
ing type of work (occupation, industry), location, and compensation (Granovetter
1974, Hanson and Pratt 1995).
The importance of these personal relations points to the need to recognize how
social and cultural capitaI shape people's access to opportunities. Social capital
'encompasses benefits derived from relations of mutual trust and collaboration; it
thus resides in the relations between members, not in the individuals who compose
it' (Fernandez Kelly 1995,216). Portes and Sensenbrenner (1993, 1323), who are
interested in social capital primarily as it intersects with the labor market, define it
as 'those expectations for action within a collectivity that affect the economic
goals and goal-seeking behavior of its members, even ifthose expectations are not
oriented toward the economic sphere.' They point to four sources of social capital:
(1) value introjection (the socialization into consensually established beliefs), (2)
reciprocity exchanges (the norm of reciprocity in face-to-face interaction), (3)
bounded solidarity (common awareness), and (4) enforceable trust (rewards and
sanctions linked to group membership) (Portes and Sensenbrenner 1993, 1323).3
Cultural capital consists of symbols and values that help people to make sense
of their experiences; it is a byproduct of social capital because it is developed
through the personal interactions that are the raw material of social capital (Fer-
nandez Kelly 1995, 220). Social and cultural capital develop through social ex-
changes that until now have usually and necessarily been largely face to face. The
social and cultural capital available to a person depend on the nature of these per-
sonal interactions, which cannot be ephemeral, fleeting, or singular; social capital
requires repeated contacts and the expectation of on-going interaction. 4
The expectation of repeated interactions points to the importance of geographie
context in shaping social and cultural capital. The webs of social relations that
sustain them develop and grow among the people living in a particular place and
time. Social and cultural capital depend on the sustained contact that comes with
residential rootedness (Hanson and Pratt 1995). Moreover, the geographic content
of the information and knowledge exchanged through these social networks (e.g.,
concerning job opportunities or how to find a good physician) depends in large

3 Fernandez Kelly (1995) and Porte and Sensenbrenner (1995) note that the concept of so-
cial capital has its origins in the dassie sociological texts of Durkheim, Marx, Webber,
and Simmel. Coleman (1988) was instrumental in reviving interest in social capital.
4 A question that bears scrutiny is whether social capital can be built on the Internet. My
suspicion is that the success of IT as a medium for building social capital is likely to de-
pend on one's social position (e.g., gender and dass) and the nature and amount ofsocial
capital one already has.
 Reconceptualizing Accessibility 273

part on the geographic extent of the network members' experiences (Hanson and
Pratt 1991, 1995).
This geographic dimension points to another crucial characteristic of social capi-
tal, namely the extent to which it embraces diversity. Do the social networks that
yield social capital connect people across a range of interests and experiences and
across lines of social cleavage (e.g., age, income, class, gender, race)? Putnam
(1993) argues that the civic virtue of social capitallies precisely in its ability to do
so. Putnam's point is that some interests that bring people in a community together
(his examples include bowling in a league, singing in a chorus, or volunteering for
the PT A) will necessarily cut across other lines of social cleavage (income, gen-
der, religion, class, etc.). Fernandez Kelly's study of teen motherhood in a Balti-
more ghetto suggests how sei dom such cross-cutting ties are in fact part of the
social capital of the poor.
Note the importance of embodiment in this argument: bowlers or singers may
share a passion, but it is precisely their coming together in the flesh, as whole per-
sons, that brings people in contact with difference and therefore bridges lines of
social cleavage. Joining together with like-minded souls on the Internet to pursue
a common interest does not necessarily have the same result. What is the probabil-
ity that a person selected at random from one's social network will be the source
of new or surprising information about employment opportunities? Are the people
who supply one with information about jobs all working at the same level in the
same kind of jobs? If so, any job information received from them is likely to be
less useful for social mobility than if that information came from a network of
diverse sources (Granovetter 1982, Hanson and Pratt 1991). Do networks extend
beyond the immediate community, or are they socially and spatially confined? The
amount of diversity that is built into the social capital of a place or person or group
crucially affects accessibility. Because geographic mobility allows people to sepa-
rate themselves spatially from those who are different, one serious source of un-
equal access in metro areas is the relative homogeneity - and impoverished
homogeneity - in the social and cultural capital of the poor.
In sum, access to jobs requires more than having proximity/mobility and even
more than possessing the needed human capital (education, skills, experience) for
a particular type of employment. It requires information, but more importantly, it
requires certain kinds of information - the kinds that inhere in social and cultural
capital. Traditionally social and cultural capital have developed through networks
of F2F contact, in which information has been contextualized and a basis for trust
established. In thinking about accessibility in an information age, how might IT
intersect with these often place-based and place-biased information networks?
How might IT be used to intervene strategically to increase the access of those
who currently lack it?
274 S. Hanson

16.6 Accessibility = Grounded + Virtual

I have argued that traditional measures of accessibility are silent on the role of
information and that any information-age concept or measure of accessibility must
incorporate information, virtual and grounded, electronic and F2F. In this final
section, I first sketch out how the pre-virtual information (exchanged F2F) em-
bedded in social and cultural capital already does and might in the future interact
synergistically with virtual or cyber information. Second, I consider desiderata in
an information-age accessibility measure.
Some have seen IT as the perfect answer for those whose social capitallacks the
diversity needed to connect them with 'good' opportunities, such as good jobs.
Because most people find out about jobs through personal contacts, people with
highly localized social networks are unlikely to hear about jobs that are located
outside the immediate community.5 Moreover, because previous co-workers are
an important source of information about new jobs (more so for men than for
women), having held few or no jobs in the past also constricts one's information
about job opportunities. IT has been proposed as an ideal way to obviate these
problems and supply people with the job information they need.
But this suggestion shows no appreciation for why social networks are so popu-
lar as conduits of job information in the first place and why digital job banks have
not been very popular with either workers or employers. People value F2F infor-
mation from known sources: the on-going nature of a social relation enables trust
and sheds light on the veracity of the information; in this sense the source acts as a
screen. The importance people accord the information they exchange face to face
underlines the crucial role of context; information exchanged electronically means
something different from information exchanged in person. Yet despite the power
of F2F, the Web does have enormous potential for disseminating job and em-
ployment-related information and especially for bridging the divide between in-
formation haves and have nots. This suggests the possibility of a productive union
between grounded and virtual information exchanges.
I've recently begun a study of entrepreneurship that focuses largely on how
business start-ups and self-employment are related to and embedded in people's
labor market experiences. A couple of anecdotes from entrepreneurs we've inter-
viewed in Worcester illustrate how these people are combining IT with F2F to
increase access. The point here is not so much that lots of small business owners
are using the Internet; relatively few now do, although many more voice plans to

5 Certainly not all social networks that connect people with jobs are localized around par-
ticular workplaces. Meir and Giloth (1985) found that word-of-mouth recruiting explained
high unemployment and long commutes to low-wage jobs among Mexican Americans in
a Chicago neighborhood that had good local job opportunities. The employers in this
neighborhood used word-of-mouth recruiting, but their existing employees did not live
locally and had no local networks. Neighborhood residents did not, therefore, have the
needed network access to jobs in their own neighborhood.
 Reconceptualizing Accessibility 275

use the Internet soon. What is striking is how use ofthe Web combines in interest-
ing ways with personal contacts to serve the business owners' interests.
One woman, whose home-based business is marketing the products of high-tech
firms to scientists and engineers, uses the Web extensively. A considerable share
of her c\ients are in California and Texas. When we asked how she had penetrated
those markets, she cited word of mouth and her firms' Website, two methods that
she c\early sees as complementary. Having worked in the high-tech field for seven
years before launching her own company, this woman had an extensive array of
personal contacts among potential c\ients before start-up She now prepares a quar-
terly newsletter on marketing, which she faxes to all of her current c\ients (most of
whom came to her via word ofmouth) and to potential c\ients whom she's gleaned
from the Web as weIl as from word of mouth with existing c\ients and others. The
news letter refers readers to her Website, which then prompts some personal con-
tact and yields new c\ients.
A second example - of a woman who runs a flooring company - suggests how
business owners use the Web strategically to broaden and diversify information
sources weIl beyond what would be available through place-based personal con-
tacts. When asked whom she relies on now for information and advice in running
her business, she replied succinctly (and quite distinctly): 'My computer.' She
uses the Internet extensively to learn what her competitors are doing as weIl as to
identify potential c\ients. She has, in fact, been able to extend her market area by
learning from the Web about potential jobs, hut her floor installers have been will-
ing to travel to these distant locations only because (and when) they have personal
contacts (family, friends) there. These examples illustrate how small business
owners weave together various forms ofIT with F2F to promote their businesses.
Here are a few additional examples, with a more futuristic flavor. One involves
setting up computer work-stations and Internet links in study rooms/labs for chi 1-
dren in public housing projects or in neighborhood study centers in low-income
areas. My sense is that most people rely upon their social networks in learning
new IT and in negotiating the Internet; people often, for example, visit new web
sites because they have heard about them in F2F exchanges. These facilities will
need to be staffed with people who can help the children use the technology, a
F2F /IT interface in itself, and offer them personal contacts that link them to the
world beyond their immediate environments. Such adults might be college stu-
dents, teachers, or retired persons whose experiences straddle the local community
and other places and who can personally connect the children to opportunities out-
side their immediate experience. The synergistic nature of IT and F2F interaction
will be evident, for example, in that staff in these facilities will often use the Web
to identify opportunities previously unknown to themselves.
In the context of job search, it seems possible that intermediaries such as teach-
ers, members of the c\ergy, volunteers, or members of non-profits could play an
important bridging role. Perhaps both job seeker and intermediary would have
access to job information on the Web and the intermediary could act as go-
between with employers, helping to screen applicants. In this way IT might also
he\p match teenagers with employers in internships and apprenticeships that
276 S. Hanson

would link them into work-based social networks. IT will be most powerful in
expanding access if it enriches social capital by broadening and diversitying in-
formation exchanged face to face and by prompting the discussion of new ques-
tions.
How might information-age accessibility measures incorporate these informa-
tional dimensions of access; i.e., how might accessibility measures include aspects
of access other than simple opportunities-discounted-by-distance? I suggest three
components as desiderata for information-age measures of access. First, I think
that we should not neglect the spatial arrangements captured in good old-
fashioned spatial accessibility measures; these will remain important and should
be retained in information-age accessibility measures. Second, as many other au-
thors in this book have suggested, measuring access in the information age means
including one or more measures ofthe access ofpeople and places to IT itself - in
the horne, school, neighborhood, or workplace - and to locations in cyberspace.
Third, access measures must incorporate measures of the sociallcultural capital
that individuals, groups, and areas have access to. This means devising measures
that capture the collective information assets - and especially the diversity present
in these group assets - that network members can tap into.
Operationalizing these concepts presents achallenge, but with GIS, devising
such measures is not out of the question as long as the U.S. Census long form re-
mains. For example, one could use the journey-to-work files derived from the long
form to characterize for each person or household or area Cl) the occupations and
industries (measured by three-digit census codes) of employment and the wages
earned per worker in that person's or household's place ofresidence and place of
work, where places could be census tracts, block groups, or blocks and (2) the
variance in occupations, industries, and wages by place of residence and place of
work. The residence-focused measures could be weighted by length of residence.
These are rough measures, to be sure, but the data are readily available and they
do capture key aspects of social and cultural capital, i.e., the embeddedness of
people in particular milieus. Another possibility that does not rely on the census
long form but instead uses data from employers lies in examining the zip codes of
residence of the current employees in a given work place (where place can be de-
fined as an employer/establishment or as the collection of employers in an area).
Mapping these would shed light on the spatial extent of information exchanges
that people have access to at the workplace. I offer these as surrogate measures for
the nature and diversity of information exchanged F2F through social networks.
 Reconceptualizing Accessibility 277

16.7 Conclusion

I have argued that information-age concepts and measures of accessibility must go

beyond incorporating the role of IT in providing access. Such concepts and meas-
ures must also acknowledge the powerful (though certainly not all-powerful) role
of F2F personal interactions in shaping patterns of accessibility. IT can extend
horizons, increasing access and helping to dismantle information segregation, but
it will do this most effectively if embedded in webs of grounded, often place-
based social relations that themselves bridge social and information cleavages. 6
My main point is that IT and the Web are not simply technologies that are de-
ployed in a vacuum or a materially neutral cyberspace; they invariably intersect
with place-based processes, including patterns of communication, that strongly
affect accessibility. So, even if everyone had equal access to the Internet and other
spatial technologies, people's embeddedness in networks of social relations -and
the likely continuing importance of this embeddedness - raises the two central
research questions I've proposed: (1) How are people using IT (VC) and F2F to
shape their access, either by increasing or constraining it? (2) How can informa-
tion-age accessibility measures recognize people's embeddedness in the networks
of social relations that play such an important role in determining access?

References
Cleveland, H. 1985. The twilight ofhierarchy: Speculations on the global information soci-
ety. Public Administration Review 45(1): 185-95.
Coleman, J. 1988. SociaJ capital in the creation of human capitaJ American Journa/ 0/Soci-
ology Supplement: S95-S120.
Fernandez Kelly, P. 1995. Social and cultural capitaJ in the urban ghetto: Implications for
the economic sociology of immigration. In Portes, A. (ed.) The Economic Soci%gy 0/
Immigration: Essays on Networks, Ethnicify, and Entrepreneurship. New York: Russell
Sage Foundation, 213-47.
Graham, S. 1998. The end of geography or the explosion of place? Conceptualizing space,
place, and information technology. Progress in Human Geography 22(2):165-85.
Granovetter, M. 1974. Getting a Job: A Study o/Contacts and Careers. Cambridge: Har-
yard University Press.
Granovetter, M. 1982. The strength of weak ties: A network theory revisited. In Marsden,
P. and Lin, N. (eds.) Social Structure and NetworkAna/ysis. Beverly Hills: Sage. 105-30.
Hanson, S.. 1998. Off the road? Reflections on transportation geography in the infromation
age. Journal o/Transport Geography 6(4):241-9.
Hanson, S. and Pratt, G. 1991. Job search and the occupational segregation ofwomen. An-
na/s o/theAssociation 0/American Geographers 81:229-53.
Hanson, S. and Pratt, G. 1995. Gender, Work; and Space. New York: Routledge.

6 We might consider also how people use IT not only to increase their access to information
and opportunities but also to control and limit the access of others to the self (e.g., via
turning off the telephone, using caller ID and answering machines, checking e-mail spo-
radically).
278 S. Hanson

Jones, S. 1995. Understanding community in the information age. In Jones, S.G. (ed) Cy-
bersociety: Computer-mediated Communication and Community. Sage publications.
Kingsolver, B. 1998. The Poisonwood Bible. New York: Haprper Flamingo.
'Information Inequality,' Boston Globe August 23,1997.
Meir, R. and Giloth, R. 1985. Hispanic employment opportunities: A case of internaIlabor
markets and weak-tied social networks. Social Science Quarterly 66:296-307.
Portes, A. and Sensenbrenner, J. 1993. Embeddedness and immigration: Notes on the social
determinants of economic action. American Journal ojSociology 98: 1320-50.
Putnam, R. 1993. The prosperous community: Social capital and public Iife. The American
Prospect No. 13 :35-42.
Shannon, G. and Weaver, W. 1949. The Mathematical Theory ojCommunication. Urbana,
IL: University of IIIinois Press.
Sproull, L. and Kiesler, S. 1993. Computers, networks, and work. In Harasim, L. (ed)
Global Networks: Computers and International Communication. Cambridge, MA: MIT
Press.
Van Alstyne, M. and Brynjolfsson, E. 1996. Could the Internet balkanize science? Science
274:1479-80.
17 Revisiting the Concept of Accessibility:
Some Comments and Research Questions

Sylvie Occelli

IRES - Istituto di Ricerche Economico Sociali dei Piemonte, Via Nizza 18,
10125 Turin, Italy. Email: occelli@ires.piemonte.it

17.1 Introduction

Almost all urban systems in developed countries are undergoing a number of insti-
tutional, socio-economic and cultural changes, pushing them towards a 'new' so-
cietal configuration that is generally taken to be more democratic, better educated,
culture-based, and environmentally sensitive, i.e., the so-called Post-Fordist soci-
ety (AminI994). Space-adjusting technologies, and particularly the New Informa-
tion Technologies (NIT), are playing a substantial role in this transition, since they
affect both the range and time-related organization of activities offered in an urban
setting, as weil as the ways in which individuals participate in them (see Castells
1989, Graham and Marvin 1996).
Due to its intrinsic ability to provide the 'connections' between the pattern of
activities and their interdependencies, accessibility is a very sensitive concept for
analyzing these changes. In the current transition to a Post-Fordist society, how-
ever, the notions traditionally used reveal many drawbacks. Arevision is needed
to (a) improve understanding of the space-time changes taking place in modern
cities (Couclelis 1996, Bertuglia and Occelli 1997) and (b) provide appropriate
indications for coping with practical planning problems and, in particular, policies
relating to accessibility.
While not exhaustive, this paper identifies a number of aspects likely to consti-
tute the accessibility question in Post-Fordist urban development (see Rabino and
Occelli 1997). The discussion builds upon recent work in which the need for this
revision has already been advocated (Occelli 1998a). It was argued that, at least on
substantive grounds, a major area for exploration is the impact of New Informa-
tion Technologies (NIT) on the time dimension underlying the notion of accessi-
bility. It was pointed out that the NIT gives accessibility a new role and new po-
tential, making it not simply a time-space opportunity, but also aresource. This
implies going beyond conventional definitions of accessibility and requires a
broader perspective of analysis.
One implicit aim for this chapter is to show how reasoning about accessibility
(i.e., developing an analytical framework, such as a modeling activity) can help
both in disentangling accessibility problems and in defining better policy meas-
280 S. Occelli

ures. The discussion is divided into four parts, which form the main building
blocks ofthis reasoning.
The first part revisits the concept of accessibility, emphasizing how it relates to
the main components of a spatial system, and the second part recalls classical
definitions of accessibility proposed in the literature. It is argued that these reflect
the features of the city that have emerged during the historical process of urbani-
zation. A meta-typology of urban development is proposed as a way to improve
understanding of accessibility in relation to the stages of urban evolution.
The third part shows that extensions in the analysis of accessibility do not result
only from phenomenological issues associated with the transition to a Post-Fordist
society. They are also related to a shift in analysis within the mainstream of quan-
titative geography. Implications of this new approach to the understanding of ac-
cessibility are illustrated.
The last part focuses on the formulation of some of the issues likely to be given
priority in future research on relationships between NIT, urban evolution and ac-
cessibility. In this connection, a research project on accessibility in the Turin Met-
ropolitan Area ofItaly is described.

17.2 The Appealing Concept of Accessibility

Despite being an intuitive concept in everyday language as weil as in geography,

accessibility is difficult to translate into a single meaningful notion. One reason is
related to the ontology of the concept, which is quite unique in geography. In fact,
it does not refer to any clearly defined physical, social or economic entity, but to
an hybrid juzzy entity that shares features of the two fundamental components of
any spatial system: the spatio-temporal pattern of activities and the spatio-
functional pattern of interdependencies. In providing a bridge between these two
components, the concept of accessibility acts as a junction between them I.

Underlying any notion of accessibility is:

(1) An urban product--a bundle of activities, services or places--that is spatially

distributed in a city or a region;
(2) A demand or need for the urban product. People and organizations are there-
fore motivated to gain access to a range of urban products, whose enjoyment
is recognized as bringing some benefits;

1 From a different point of view, the junction role of accessibility has already been recog-
nized in New Urban Economics, where accessibility has been interpreted as an extemal-
ity, thus sharing the properties of a public good (see Papageorgiou 1987).
 Revisiting the Concept of Accessibility 281

(3) The effort necessary to re ach an urban product to engage in an activity in a

certain place at a given time. This effort may be seen as the monetary, tempo-
ral, travel, or psychological costs borne in order to have access to the product.
(4) A set of constraints, which depend on the behavior of the individual, usually
associated with personal resources and household responsibilities, and on the
opportunity pattern existing in a urban setting (i.e., the spatio-temporal order-
ing of urban activities, differentiated by type, location, characteristics, and
form of organization).

Accessibility can thus be considered as the outcome and, at the same time, a
component of the interaction process underlying the functioning of urban systems.
It is intuitively evident, ceteribus paris, that the greater the importance given to an
urban product and the lower the constraints on its enjoyment, the higher its acces-
sibility. On the other hand, a high level of accessibility is likely to enhance the
importance of an urban product and stimulate the demand, thus increasing its po-
tential for interaction (i.e., the level of flows to and from the area where the prod-
uct is located, and the number of contacts between people).
Empirically, the 'junction role of accessibility has long been recognized in land-
use and transportation analysis. Several measures of accessibility have been for-
mulated and provide meaningful links within and between residence- and organi-
zation-based urban sectors. These relate the various activities available to indi-
vi duals and organizations with the systems of transport and communications,
which allows individuals to overcome the impeding distances and to participate in
specific activities (see Hansen 1959, Wilson 1971, Morris Dumble and Wigan
1979, Leonardi 1979, Wachs and Koenig 1979, Koenig 1980, Hanson 1984, Han-
son and Schwab 1987).
More recently, this intrinsic junction feature of the concept has been exploited,
and measures of accessibility are explicitly included in the performance indicators
developed for the analysis and evaluation of spatial structures (Clarke and Wilson
1987a, 1987b, Bertuglia, Clarke, and Wilson 1994). The junction role of the con-
cept is, however, also responsible for certain elusiveness underlying the notion of
accessibility. It explains the ambiguity, which often accompanies the common use
of the term, associated primarily with travel-derived demand. Thus, accessibility is
used to mean both the proximity and ease of interaction and the possibility of in-
teraction.
As far as the former is concerned, its application in the field of transportation
and land-use planning has generally involved an interpretation connected in some
way with the spatial separation of human activities, usually expressed as a physi-
cal distance or a time. Time as a locational and co-locational continuum thus rep-
resents a basic dimension of accessibility (Car1stein, Parkes, and Thrift 1978).
In relation to the latter, the role of time associated with spatial separation makes
it possible to relate the notion of accessibility to the field of choices of interaction
available to an individual (Weibull 1980). The extension of this field depends on
the individual's capacity and resources, and also on the patterns of opportunity he
or she possesses in relation to the mix of activities, and their functional and spatial
282 S. Occelli

organization. Some typical factors characterizing the pattern of opportunities are

the spacing of settlements, the range of urban activities offered, the modes of
transport available, and the journey time.
An important consequence of this latter interpretation is that accessibility is not
seen as an entity per se, but a property that an individual can take advantage of,
given a certain pattern of opportunities. As this depends on the functional and spa-
tial organization of human activities, the evolutionary path of an urban system
conditions accessibility. Accessibility is, therefore, linked with the dynamics of
cities.
The most direct impact of the new information technologies (NIT) is on the
junction role of accessibility. This makes the concept of accessibility appealing for
investigating the impacts of NIT adoption on city and spatial systems. This also
explains why accessibility indicators are valuable tools for assessing the overall
effects of NIT on both the spatio-temporal pattern of activities and the spatio-
functional pattern of interdependencies. Not only has there recently been a new
impetus to the application of accessibility notions in empirical analysis (see Hel-
ling, 1998, Bruinsma and Rietveld, 1998, Kwan, 1998), but the widespread diffu-
sion ofNIT is giving new scope for examining the junction role of accessibility.
Although they are difficult to identify the effects of the impact of NIT on acces-
sibility are both substantive and methodological. On substantive grounds, one re-
cently identified feature of NIT (and of any innovation; see Bertuglia and Occelli
1997) is related to its hard and a soft components, corresponding respectively to
tangible and intangible parts. The former consists of the content of innovation
itself (e.g., the network, information production, and communication); the latter is
the flux 01 change in the interaction patterns - various forms of re-organization
and the reshaping of activities at both individual and collective levels that result
from its application.
Two features ofNIT, which are particularly relevant for accessibility, are:

(1) The time-space shrinking potential: by substituting physical movement

(travel) with virtual interaction (see point 3 above), NIT can affect the effort
needed to reach an urban product; and
(2) The enabling potential: by allowing more flexibility in carrying out certain
work and domestic responsibilities (or tasks), as well as in the provision of
firm and household services, NIT can help relax the set 01 constraints an indi-
vidual faces in everyday life (see point 4 above). In addition, NIT can also
modify the urban products available in an urban setting by improving its rela-
tive competitiveness (see point 1 above).

While making the junction role of accessibility more complex, this endows it
with new potentialities. Accessibility is no longer just a property to take advantage
 Revisiting the Concept of Accessibility 283

of, but a resource that a city as, a collective social entity, makes available 2• It is
the increased potential in its junction role that makes accessibility so relevant in
the new information society. Although not yet fully recognized, this is foreshad-
owed in a number of re cent studies where accessibility is referred to as a meaning-
ful analytical notion for investigating the impact of innovation on the functional
and spatial organization of urban activities. For example, Kobayashi, Sunao and
Yoshikawa (1993), use an accessibility representation to describe the interdepend-
encies created by knowledge exchanges. Martellato (1993) considers transport and
telematic accessibility as distinct inputs to the production function of firms. He
analyzes how changes in the price of such services impact on the locations of
firms. Bertuglia, Lombardo and Occelli (1995) develop a model for simulating
urban scenarios in which the location choices of firms depend on both transport
and telematic accessibility.
On methodological grounds, acknowledgement of the hard and soft components
of NIT changes our way of conceiving accessibility and hence its role in relation
to Post-Fordist urban development. As discussed later in this chapter, there can be
no single notion of accessibility. There will be many different definitions and
measurements of accessibility (see IRES 1995, Kwan 1998 and Helling 1998).
Depending on how it is represented, the differing knowledge of accessibility held
by different individuals mirrors the complexity ofthe concepe.

17.3 Accessibility and the City

The implications associated with the junction role of accessibility have never been
fully explored in the literature. Nonetheless, they have inspired a number of defi-
nitions, which have shed valuable light on many urban phenomena and spatial

2 It has been po si ted (Bertuglia and Occelli 1997) that this soft component is by far the
most important aspect of present-day innovation. It can be related to economically based
notions of knowledge, experience and learning, or to the circuits of communicative inter-
action that form the social fabric; it can even be associated with the so-called software
network (including education, the arts, and science) that embellish human infrastructure
(Andersson et al. 1993). More importantly, however, by changing interaction patterns, it
can affect a whole range of behavioral (i.e., goal seeking, explorative, imitative, hyper-
selective) processes. These can act at both the individual and collective level and affect
spatial systems in a number of different ways to feed its evolution. One relevant implica-
ti on is that everyone can be an agent of innovation. By pointing at the ordinary agent -
whether an individual, household, organization, or collective society - as repository of
innovation, we have a less elitist view.
3 Acknowledging the individual ordinary agent (person, household or organization) as the
main repository of innovation, implies that hislher notions of accessibility are increas-
ingly important - how they are derived from individual agents' representations of their
daily activity patterns and how these representations are continuously adjusted, modified,
and re-created.
284 S.Occelli

changes. Most of these definitions can be considered by products of the theoretical

and methodological approaches to urban interactions developed in urban and re-
gional studies over the last thirty years.

Table 17.1. Some definitions of accessibility

Definitions Approaches
As the potential of interaction opportunities
(Hansen 1959)

Intrinsic characteristic (or advantage) ofa Physical-deterministic

place relative to the spatial friction (gravity type approach)
encountered in gaining access
(Ingram 1971, Dalvi and Martin 1976)

Appreciation ofthe quality oftransport Economic-functionalist

conditions and availability of supply in a (entropyapproach)
place, relative to a certain need
(Vickerman 1974)

The outcome of choice between a set of Economic-behavioral

alternatives (micro-economic approach, random
(Ben-Akiva and Lerman 1979) utility theory )
An aspect of the freedom of action of
individuals, depending on physical and time
constraints
(Hägerstrand 1975, Bums 1979)

An availability created in daily activity, Spatio-temporal

measurable by the effort necessary to generate (behavioral approach)
or maintain it
(Pirie 1979)

A resource associated with the many webs of Informational

interaction established by people and
organizations in urban systems

Table 17.1 lists a few of these definitions and, although not exhaustive, gives an
idea of the evolution of the accessibility concept. Also mentioned are the main
approaches to urban interactions from which the definitions are derived or to
which they can be related.
 Revisiting the Concept of Accessibility 285

Occelli (1998a) observes that these definitions have progressed:

(1) from a concept of accessibility in physical-deterministic terms, according to

which interaction factors are represented by the mass of the localized activi-
ties and by the impedance, which is a ftmction of the physical distance be-
tween them;
(2) towards an economic conceptualization, where factors of interaction are the
economic opportunities existing in zones and the impedance is a cost, ex-
pressible in monetary terms to cover the movement necessary to reach the
various zones;
(3) involving a probabilistic-behavioral notion, where accessibility is the outcome
of interacting individual behaviors resulting from a process of choice among a
set of different alternatives; and
(4) arriving at a conceptualization in which the fundamental essence of accessi-
bility is linked with the type, intensity, and forms of interaction established, or
likely to be established, by individuals and organizations

An interesting exercise would be to put the definitions and approaches shown in

Table 17.1 in a historical perspective and to link them with the features that mark
the urbanization process. For reasons of space, it is not possible to undertake this
here, but Table 17.2 gives suggestions for a kind of meta-typology to serve as a
reference for future research into the changes that have occurred in urban systems
over time.
The labels used (Pre-industrial city, Fordist city, Post-Fordist city) and the three
stages ofurban evolution described are not new. They are drawn from the existing
literature, which has used them extensively to deal with issues of socio-economic
growth, and to describe the consequences of growth in terms of spatial patterns,
technological innovation, wealth, sustainability, and quality of life (Brotchie 1986,
Freeman and Perez 1988, Batten 1995, Bertug1ia and Occelli 1995, Brotchie, An-
derson, and McNamara 1995).
What is more unusual is that the meta-typology matches a set of commonly rec-
ognized socio-economic and institutional features with a set of spatial features.
This association relies on the assumption that spatiaI patterns cannot be fully un-
derstood without taking into account the underlying socio-economic and interac-
tion structures. The spatial features relate to the spatio-temporal patterns of activi-
ties and to the spatio-functional pattern of interdependencies. They concern (a) the
spatial distribution of activities (i.e., the spacing of human settlements and popula-
tion density) that supports the socio-economic growth of the system, and (b) the
type of the interaction (i.e., the number and average length of trips between de-
mand and supply centers) between residence-based and organization-based activi-
ties. The bottom part of Table 17.2 indicates those correlates of accessibility that
seem most relevant for the various stages of urban evolution. Also mentioned are
the major urban issues for the different urban types.
286 S. Occelli

The proposed typology is, of course, highly simplistic and ignores other deter-
minants of urban change or, more importantly, continuities over time. It is how-
ever detailed enough to show that, in the evolution ofurban systems, an increasing
complexification of cities has taken place. This is particularly evident when we
contrast the descriptions ofFordist and Post-Fordist types ofurban development.
The Fordist City is generally seen as a place of industrial production, whose
evolution is driven by the growth of (export oriented) industrial sectors, which in
turn trigger the growth of the resident population and services. These services in-
clude all urban activities that are oriented to the local market (i.e., the resident
population of the city). The spatial interactions consist mainly of flows of employ-
ees who travel between the many places of residence to the few places of work.
The structure of the city is intrinsically stable and its path of growth is continuous
and unvarying. The most relevant determinants of accessibility are associated with
the costs of commuter movements and the opportunities within zones (i.e., the
range ofurban activities and vacant land), and with transportation (e.g., mass tran-
sit, road capacity, and speed). By contrast, the Post-Fordist city is seen as an in-
formation-based spatial system in which the kind and characteristics of relation-
ships become increasingly important (Rabino and Occelli 1997).
Not only are urban relationships more numerous and varied (by type, time inten-
sity, frequency, and number of actors involved), but they are also evolutive and
self-organizing, based on different spatial and temporal scales (the world-wide and
local) and interacting with the relationships of other sub-systems (e.g., the envi-
ronmental and socio-cultural sub-systems, etc.). The most salient feature of the
Post-Fordist City is, therefore, the pattern of networking relationships. Not unex-
pectedly, accessibility has a multi-dimensional nature related to the interaction
opportunity (which can be social, functional, physical, and virtual) of individuals
and organizations, resulting from their capacity to enter various fields of urban
interaction.
From the definitions of accessibility in Table 17.1, none of them are associated
with the pre-industrial city. While the definitions rooted in the physical determi-
nistic and economic-functionalist approaches can be related to characteristics of a
Fordist city, those derived from the economic-behavioral, spatio-temporal, and
informational approaches clearly allude to a Post-Fordist type of urban develop-
ment. The so-called informational approach, in particular, accommodates the role
of the New Information Technologies in our understanding of the present-future
continuum and ofplanning for the future (Miles and Robins 1992).
Tables 17.1 and 17.2 recognize the increasing complexification of cities. That
accessibility, too, is becoming more complex is also acknowledged. As noted, the
time-space shrinking possibilities and enabling potentials associated with NIT, are
major determinants ofthis complexification.
 Revisiting the Concept of Accessibility 287

Table 17.2. A meta-typology ofthe urban system in an evolutionary perspective

Pre-industrial city
FEATURES (merchant and agricul- Fordist city Post-Fordist city
tural based society)
Socio-economic and institutional aspects
Production sectors Agriculture, electrical Cars, armaments, Computers, capital
machinery, steel ships consumer durables, goods, optical fibers
petro-chemicals. Mass telecommunications,
production
Tertiary sectors Domestic services, state Growth of social and Expansion of infor-
and local bureaucracies, financial services. mation services. New
growth oftransportation Decline of domestic forms of craft
and distribution services production
In/rastructures Canals, railways, roads Electrical cables, Digital communica-
highways, airlines, tions network,
airports satellites
Social organiza- Rigid c\ass divisions. Unified c\ass Pluralistic c\ass for-
tion and popula- Urbanization, high formation and parties. mations, multi-party
tion trends population turnover Concentration of system, regional di-
population in urban versification. Counter
areas urbanization and
aging of population
Aspects 0/regimes Craft unions and early Welfare state and its New-style participa-
0/ regulation sociallegislation crises tory decentralized
welfare state
Spatial aspects
Settlement pattern Isolated, small settle- Formation of polar- Metropolitanization,
and urbanization ments with stable popu- ized, high-density edge cities, dispersed,
I,processes lation agglomerations. polycentric settle-
Marginalization of ments ofvarious size,
peripheral areas network of cities
Type 0/ interaction One-to-one. Open non One-to-many. Radial Many-to-many. Inter-
connected network network connected network
Determinants 0/ Physical distance and Cost of movement, Interaction opportuni-
accessibility transport. Place-based centrality, transport ties, physical vs. vir-
determinant means. Person-based tual interaction. Field-
determinants based determinants
Major urban Housing and health Employrnent, cost of Environmental sus-
issues conditions opportunities, re- tainability, quality of
source allocation , life, urban perform-
urban growth ances, city competi-
ti on
288 S. Occelli

17.4 A Million 07 So Notions of Accessibility: Towards Socially

Agreed Definitions

The discussion so far has provided arguments on the need for revisiting notions of
accessibility. However, this need does not result solely from phenomenological
issues that mirror the transition to a Post-Fordist society. Increased complexity in
the notion of accessibility also depends on a broader shift in the approach to
analysis. This is related to several changes in the modeling field (and more gener-
ally in quantitative geography) over the past twenty years. Some ofthese changes,
which are also major topics of enquiry in the Varenius Project, have been ad-
dressed more extensively elsewhere (see Rabino and Occelli 1997) and are sum-
marized below.

(1) A first source of change sterns from the epistemological background. The
acknowledgement of limits to rationality and the need to develop a new phi-
losophy for social action has fostered an interest in the cognitive interpreta-
tion of modeling. In this approach, the model is a means for hypothesis test-
ing, targeting ill-defined problems and yielding alternative visions of likely
futures. This is distinct from the structuralist interpretation of models that
seek a more rigorous understanding of the workings of the system. Whereas
differences between structuralist and cognitivist interpretations are becoming
more noticeable, the complementarily of their roles in dealing with urban
phenomena is also more evident. If, for complex systems, such as cities, 'the
multiplicity of disciplinary viewpoints and paradigms is the norm' (Batty and
Xie 1996, 202), then one major challenge for urban modeling and geographi-
cal analysis is how to reconcile the connections between the two interpreta-
tions. In this direction, some possibilities lie in:

• the 'identification and judicious description of relatively invariant factors

that can be expected to constrain the observable system states' (Couclelis
1984, 322), i.e., a system's historical and structural prior information;
• the possibility, useful from an operational point of view, of defining a
number of windows of observation through which certain system features
and properties can be described (see Rabino 1996); and
• reference to the concept of virtual system organization, which, in a self-
organizing system, can enhance our prescriptive capacity for addressing
urban problems (Turoff 1997).

(2) A second source of change is the new technological backcloth resulting from
the introduction of NIT and, in particular, from the increasing power of desk-
top computing. Three related consequences are:
 Revisiting the Concept of Accessibility 289

• a shift in the role of computers. Whereas, previously, a computer was

simply a computing tool and the level of technological sophistication set
the benchmark for the application potential, the computer is now an inte-
gral part of spatial analysis - GIS applications, simulation experiments,
interactive visualizations, and virtual environments. Most current empiri-
cal studies could not even be conceived of without a computing device.
Computer environments serve as templates for describing the real world,
and for prescribing self-organizing environments;
• the increasing efficiency of operational procedures. Thanks to the ad-
vance in information technologies, it is now possible to deal with prob-
lems that were impossible or prohibitively costly to tackle earlier. By
enabling alternative procedures of implementation through parallel com-
puting and computer vision, an updating of existing approaches is also
possible - through re-engineering; and
• enhancement of communication possibilities. This results from the im-
provement of both user and method interfaces, as weil as from the diffu-
sion of computing potentialities and communication devices among a
wider and more diversified public. As far as modeling is concerned, the
possibility of carrying out experiments locally broadens the scope of spa-
tial analysis. In this respect, model applications providing the means for
sharing experience gained elsewhere offer essential support in learning
how to learn about urban processes.

(3) A final source of change concerns the socio-cultural context. As the cultural
and information levels of society as a whole are rising, the socio-cultural con-
text is becoming more demanding and selective in the kind of knowledge ex-
pected (Knight 1995). First, a new awareness is emerging about the multiplic-
ity of processes that combine to produce overall changes in urban systems.
The conceptual unity of the urban system is no longer considered an axio-
matic entity. Rather, it results from a continuous re-definition that gives em-
phasis to the interplay of knowledge-driven actions (behavior) of a variety of
actors. Planning questions also need to be put in a new perspective. For in-
stance, besides the need to disentangle the key questions to be answered by
policies, new needs are emerging for devising pro-active policies to anticipate
problems A

4 A different way to conceive relationships between the observer (the analyst) and reality
(the modeled system) is advocated. The urban model er is part ofthe observed reality and,
as such, he or she is an agent of urban change like any other agent. Furthermore, his role
as a maven no longer holds. On the one hand, as a problem-solver his role does not differ
from that of any other practitioner. On the other, as a problem-definer, the role is likely to
be enhanced. Modeling activity (in both the cognitivist and structuralist domains) makes it
possible to set up intelligent interfaces based on NIT that favor the comrnunication ofthe
various system descriptions and to arrive at a collective shared description. This idea fol-
lows arguments in policy analysis and management science that point to the need to link
290 S. Oeeelli

To give an idea of the likely consequences of these changes in the analysis of

accessibility, Figure 17.1 shows how two different approaches to understanding
accessibility compare. The diagrams are inspired by arguments discussed in Tu-
roff 1997. The first, called the conventional approach, illustrates the traditional
view of accessibility, with its roots in the positivistic assumptions held in main-
stream social sciences. The second, referred to cautiously as beyond the conven-
tional approach, reflects the conceptual shift alluded to above, and gives primary
emphasis to the role of modeling. In both approaches the four following elements
are emphasized, which correspond to the main aspects of abstraction the modeling
process:

• observable components or determinants of accessibility;

• theories or metaphors - the abstractions that steer our understanding of mod-
els of accessibility;
• mental models of accessibility - an individual's representations and tacit
knowledge of accessibility, which ultimately steer his/her day-to-day interac-
tion patterns; and
• system models - the shared descriptions or explicit knowledge of accessibil-
ity that is understood by communicating individuals.

The circular links between these elements (indicated with Arabic numbers in
Figure 17.1) relate to the process of abstraction underlying any approach to acces-
sibility. The cross-links, labeled 'validation and experimentation' refer explicitly
to specific features of the modeling activity. Although the methodological under-
pinnings of the contents of Figure 17.1 require more detailed discussion, this pres-
entation addresses only the main differences between the two approaches and their
likely implications in extending the accessibility concept.

• A first set of differences concerns the role of theories. In the conventional

approach theories are the depository of the abstractions of reality -scientific
truths that guide the formation of individuals' mental models. In contrast, in
the unconventional approach theories have a more pragmatic role, being a
means of validating models. Second, the role of 'system models' is modified
in the unconventional approach to account for the 'cognitivist orientation' in
the modeling process. A major difference in this respect can be seen in the
role of simulation, as implied in the What if? enquiry. In the conventional ap-
proach the what was the main focus of attention. However, in the unconven-
tional approach the if be comes the major focus of interest. In this approach,
the possibility of exploring alternative courses of action, adjusting them, and
assessing their viability is crucial for achieving shared descriptions of acces-

action and organizations more effeetively to enhanee the capacity of loeal planning insti-
tutions (see Bennett and MeCoshan 1993, Bryson and Crosby 1998).
 Revisiting the Concept of Accessibility 291

sibility models. Third, the 'observable' is also different in the two ap-
proaches. In the conventional approach, accessibility is assumed to be physi-
cally determined by the spatial and functional properties of the system. How-
ever, in the unconventional approach, accessibility is the outcome of a
multiplicity of changing individual perceptions - collectively shared and
evolving entities that may appear as policy issues. Finally, as far as the men-
tal models are concerned, 'awareness and consciousness' are features in the
unconventional approach, which seem unaccounted for in the conventional
approach.
• A second set of differences lies in the links. It is assumed that encoding of the
understanding process begins with an 'observation activity'. As shown in
Figure 17.1, the analytical path moves clockwise in the conventional ap-
proach (observables -7 theories -7 mental models -7 system models) and
anti-clockwise in the unconventional approach (observables -7 system mod-
els -7 mental models -7 theories). In then unconventional approach greater
emphasis is given to the shared descriptions of models (the so-called negoti-
ated accessibility) that result from an analytical activity (experimentation) to
connect the representations that underlie 'negotiated accessibility' and indi-
vidual mental models.
• A last point relates to transformation in the activities of experimentation and
validation in the unconventional approach. Experimentation becomes an ac-
tivity aimed primarily at seeking agreement between the representations of
accessibility held by individuals in achanging environment and the 'notions
of accessibility' that have been agreed upon. Validation does not necessarily
need 'physical accessibility' to be carried out. It relies on a kind of pseudo-
scientific process based on the relationships established between 'negotiated
accessibility', theories and system models, in which societal issues (e.g., eq-
uity, sustainability, and quality oflife) set the fundamental yardstick.

Figure 17.1 posits that, even from a strict1y methodological point of view, acces-
sibility is a manifold concept. Three distinct analytical dimensions for represent-
ing the notion of accessibility are suggested:

• representations 0/ individuals . and organizations' interaction patterns, given

system conditions that include economic, social, spatial, cultural and institu-
tional context as weil as personal and organizational constraints);
• systemic representations of accessibility for the city system as a geographical,
social and collective entity are the kinds of representations associated usually
in a standard GIS approach); and
• policy representations of accessibility from perspectives of goals, norms, and
policy measures for 'prescribed courses of action' related to societal issues.
292 S. Occelli

A. Conventional approach to the analysis of accessibility

tan ofthe encodlilg process

r---~T
~h~oo
-r~ie-.-
: ----'

........ ....
nbstrAccions
under lying our
un dtr Ilwd in g

System models of tan oflhe decoding

ftccwibilil"y ( in I he process
siruciuralist domHin)

B. Beyond tbe conventional approach to the analysis of accessibility

Ion oflhe decod,ng

process
Theories:
teslmg lIIbstrac1ion d~igned

~~_I_O_",_._I<_h~n_'OO__.b__~
mp/ememaflOIt V.lodauon
The ob.en'abl .. : lho
ntgotiJlted
8CC' ibilily

Socwl PI'OCeJoSeI

COllcepmal proces..'oe.'"

~
lan ofthe encodmg process

Forward c)'ele In Ihe fOfmlJhzln8 proees.s

----. FO<d-back cycle ,n Ihe fonnahzmg proc....

Figure 17.1. Approaches to the analysis ofaccessibility (adapted from Turoff 1997)

While these three representations of accessibility do not coincide, yet none of

them can exist without the others. Furthermore, because ofthe intrinsic ' complex-
ity' ofthe accessibility concept (see Casti 1984), they cannot be derived from each
other in a simple way. Conventional notions of accessibility fail to recognize this
distinction. Furthermore, this drawback introduces serious biases in the formula-
tion of policy measures for accessibility, with the risk of negating from the outset
the expected benefits.
 Revisiting the Concept of Accessibility 293

From a methodological standpoint, there is a role for NIT (particularly for its
'soft' component) in creating, updating, and innovating these threefold representa-
tions of accessibility. As suggested elsewhere (see Bertuglia and Occelli 1997),
NIT's effectiveness is strictly associated with the awareness (perception, informa-
tion, and knowledge) of innovation potential (i.e., the technological self-
referentiality mentioned by Sui (Chapter 7). This me ans that the expected impacts
of NIT on these representations are likely to have no lesser role than the appear-
ance ofNIT itself(i.e., the hard component ofNIT).
A major question concerns the potential of NIT in making it possible, and eas-
ier, to link the representations with different analytical dimensions. This extricates
us from a discussion of complexity criteria (i.e., by improving our evaluation of
the unpredictability and discontinuity of urban changes) and moves our attention
to aspects likely to have many practical implications, such as those regarding the
'reducibility question'. To deal with this question, we make two assumptions:

• Knowledge about accessibility can be (socially) increased or improved by

moving between representations obtained for various analytical dimensions.
• The possibility of 'informational convergence' of the representations cannot
be exc1uded. As argued, this implies re-establishing the connections between
the 'structuralist' and 'cognitivist' approaches to geographical analysis. This
acknowledge.s the existence of 'historical and structural prior information' and
'windows of observation' of certain system features, and recognizes the pos-
sibility of setting up a virtual system to enhance our prescriptive capacities
for the formation of urban futures.

In the creation of various representations, NIT can improve knowledge of acces-

sibility through use of analytical tools, such as indicators, models, and visual rep-
resentations (see Occelli 1998b). Because NIT contains hard and soft components,
both the rationalizing and creative components underlying any of these tools will
be deeply affected. This entails taking into account two fundamental and interre-
lated perspectives, which in the recent debate about accessibility have been over-
looked. These are:

• an evaluative perspective. This is necessary to make it possible to carry out

the 'informational convergence' of the representations of accessibility. We
should be able to: (a) compare our representations of accessibility according
to both diagnostic and socially relevant aims and (b) assess the representa-
tions in relation to given societal targets that are agreed upon or prescribed
(see Toulemonde 1995);
• a planning perspective. As accessibility is a resource to be exploited, main-
tained, and regenerated, we need to recognize it as a distinct policy issue that
does not depend exc1usively on transportation. The intrinsic multiplicity of
accessibility concepts therefore needs to be matched by a corresponding 'set'
of policy measures. This recalls what is posited in Ashby's principle of 'req-
294 S. Occelli

uisite variety', often mentioned in the literature (see Friend and Jessop 1969,
Casti 1986, Batty 1995).

17.5 Concluding Remarks

In this paper the importance ofthe 'junction role' ofaccessibility has been empha-
sized, bridging the spatio-temporal and spatio-functional component of spatial
systems. To cope with the space-time changes occurring in the transition to a Post-
Fordist type of development, it is suggested that this junction role should be revis-
ited and our notion of accessibility extended. An effort has been made to justify
this extension on conceptual, phenomenological, and methodological grounds.
The role of NIT has also been addressed. From all these points of view, the in-
creasing complexity of the concept of accessibility has emerged as a main justifi-
cation for its extension.
This does not mean that the conventional notions of accessibility no longer ap-
ply. It simply reflects the fact that accessibility is an intrinsically manifold notion,
encompassing definitions that co-exist, but are not reducible to each other. In par-
ticular, three distinct analytical levels were mentioned as having relevance for
representing accessibility - the individual, systemic, and policy levels. Although
this may appear a trivial result on speculative grounds, it is certainly not simple
from a policy point of view. Most definitions of accessibility currently used do not
consider this distinction and usually assurne that the same indicator of accessibil-
ity can be applied and have the same meaning in very different planning contexts.
In dealing with methodological aspects, it was emphasized that the many differ-
ent notions of accessibility also depend on the kind of representation we have. It
was argued that NIT could have a substantial role in the formation and updating of
representations and it was suggested that NIT, in particular its soft component,
might be helpful in allowing 'informational convergence' between the different
representations of accessibility, thus providing a bridge between the various ana-
lyticallevels.
Recent research suggests a number of questions and issues that need considera-
tion (see Couclelis 1996, Handy and Niemeier 1997, Helling 1997). Building upon
suggestions in Occelli (1998a), the following issues and questions are identified
for future research:

(1) The first relates to the difficulty in identifying the appropriate level of defini-
tion for a given representation of accessibility. The problems are both concep-
tual and empirical. Conceptually, the need to formulate an appropriate time-
space frame of reference has been pointed out (see Holly 1978). Also, the
kind of description of the 'effort necessary to get at an urban product' at the
individual and systemic levels can be quite different as a consequence of the
ways distance and travel impedance are incorporated conceptually and em-
 Revisiting the Concept of Accessibility 295

pirically (see Couclelis 1996, Handy and Niemeier 1997). Morris, Dumble
and Wigan (1979) identified empirical problems in constructing of indicators
whenever the two temporal dimensions of accessibility (the locational and co-
locational continuum and the 'ladder' of time are taken into account. Do we
wish to examine the opportunities available (through process indicators) of
what is potentially offered for different types of individuals, independently of
their observed behavior? Or, do we wish to focus on the properties of out-
come indicators, such as observed journeys to activities, travel times for jour-
neys-to-work or for leisure, and so forth? What should be investigated by
means of process indicators at one spatio-temporal scale, however, would re-
quire outcome indicators at another. Different spatio-temporal scales reveal
different issues, which can have contrasting implications for policy. A crucial
point in this respect is the management or control of the so-called 'border ef-
fects' - variations in accessibility betweendifferent time-space levels. For ex-
ample, improving regional accessibility in an international context will not
necessarily have positive effects on all local areas. Conversely, higher acces-
sibility levels in a local area do not necessarily guarantee the improvement of
its connections with regional or international markets.
(2) A second set of questions is raised by two major features of 'Post-Fordist' type
urban development, namely the growing importance of interactions (the de-
mand for mobility and communication) and the effects that such interactions
may have on sustainability and the quality of life. An important implication is
that any definition of accessibility should be accompanied by an evaluation of
the associated benefits accruing to the individual, an organization, or the city
as a whole. In particular, considering accessibility as a resource implies that
attention should be paid to:

• the type and quality of urban products, such as the various kinds of activ-
ity relative to their temporal organization and location. This means that
'what' is to be accessed and also 'how' are relevant in determining the
benefits. This in turn raises questions relating to scarcity and efficiency
in the provision of a range of urban services, as weil as the co-ordination
of the different ac ti vi ti es (e.g., the opening times of services and trans-
portation availability);
• the ways of overcoming spatial separation, such as the kinds of commu-
nication links involved in various human interactions. In this connection,
attention needs to be given to the 'value' of time associated with the
communication links, integrating the analysis of both cognitive and prac-
tical aspects ofvaluations;
• the kind of trade-offs likely to be involved: the positive effects at the in-
dividual level and any negative externalities at more aggregate levels
(e.g., increased traffic congestion in some areas of the city). One further
implication, particularly relevant in planning, concerns the relationships
between accessibility, mobility, urban form (the spatial distribution of ac-
tivities and patterns of land use), and the environment. A less myopic
296 S.OcceJli

view is required, and an assessment should be made of accessibility

changes that result from growth in the Fordist-type city. This could lead
to arevision of the mechanisms with which accessibility is provided in
relation to the spatial expansion of settlements and the daily engagement
in urban activities (e.g., the possibility offered by the new communica-
tions technologies for substituting certain trips by other forms of interac-
tion).

(3) A further set of issues concern the representation of accessibility and the
recognition that the kind of 'knowledge' held by individuals and decision-
makers about accessibility is a fundamental determinant in the use of the ac-
cessibility resource, as weil as in its preservation and regeneration. In the cur-
rent transition to a Post-Fordist urban development, there is a risk that gaps in
the different representations of accessibility (particularly between those of the
general public and decision-makers) might exacerbate accessibility needs,
raising problems of equity and social justice. Improving information about
accessibility, therefore, should be an essential component of any policy strat-
egy, since it can improve not only accessibility, but also social equity.
This last concern is a major focus of the lRES survey. The purpose of the
project is to answer two main questions which, due to the provisions set out in
anational law on local govemment enacted in 1992, are also relevant from a
policy point of view: (1) how is accessibility perceived by the residents in
metropolitan area? (For instance, what knowledge do people have oftheir ac-
cessibility and how do they value it?); and (2) what is likely to be the social
acceptability of alternative bundles of accessibility measures? The underlying
thesis of the project is that knowledge about accessibility, and the representa-
tions that individuals and decision-makers have of accessibility, is likely to be
no less significant than the accessibility policy measures themselves.
Building upon observations made previously, Figure 17.2 shows a concep-
tual framework for defining the questionnaire 5 • Two main levels of definition
of accessibility are considered: (l) a systemic level, and (2) an individual
level. Accessibility at the systemic level reflects the functional and spatial or-
ganization of the activities provided by various transport agencies and service
authorities (the mix of opportunities, trave1 times, transport services, opening

5 The IRES survey is a pilot survey for a larger research project on accessibility in the Turin
Metropolitan Area. The survey was conducted in November and December 1998 by
means of horne interviews. The individual is used as the unit of analysis. About 400 per-
sons were interviewed. Due to resource constraints, the study area was limited to the
western sector of the MA. The questionnaire was divided into three sections. Section I
covers basic information about the individual and hislher family. Section 2 covers infor-
mation about the action space of the individual in hislher urban environment. The respon-
dent was also asked for an assessment of this action space. Section 3 requested an evalua-
tion of a set of alternative measures that could be introduced to improve accessibility.
 Revisiting the Concept of Accessibility 297

times of services, etc.) observed at an aggregate level. Accessibility at the in-

dividuallevel considers the action-space within which an individual (a person
belonging to a household or a collective actor belonging to an organization)
currently operates. Besides recognizing the existence of a multiplicity of rep-
resentations of accessibility, co-existing at both individual and aggregate lev-
els, the diagram emphasizes their changing nature, resulting from a process of
learning. Emphasizing the notion of accessibility as a resource means that the
information made available not only modifies the individual's action-space,
but can also make it possible to achieve some social improvements in acces-
sibility.

Socio-economic structure Action-space o/the individual

Cultural values and institution Systemic factors (as a member of a household
Evolution paths of cities and a social organization)

Long-run

Representations
0/ accessihilifJ!.
Observed pattern %pportunities
Short-run Mobility levels, functional organizatio
- ' - - - - - - - - - - - - 1 and spatial distribution of activities,
Feedback at an individual level transport and land-uses, environment
(learning)

Feedback at an aggregate level

Figure 17.2. Conceptual framework for the IRES survey on accessibility

(4) The last question relates to the representation of accessibility and its meas-
urement. Experience so far in the definition of accessibility measures suggests
that an approach to their formulation should (see IRES 1995, Handy and
Niemeier 1997):

• incorporate descriptors that reflect changes in the performance ofthe spa-

tio-temporal and spatio-functional component ofspatial systems (e.g., the
possibility of substituting physical with telematic interactions);
• have a sound basis in theories of behavior of individuals and organiza-
tions;
298 S. Oeeelli

• be technically feasible and operatively simple; and

• be easy to interpret, especially for decision-makers and the general pub-
lic.

Experience indicates, however, that these requirements may be in conflict. The

need, for example, to define measurements that are theoretically acceptable can be
made impracticable by the lack of adequate information or perhaps cause greater
difficulty of interpretation. Furthermore, the kind of accessibility extensions called
for in this paper (and implied in the 'unconventional approach' described in Figure
17.1) contrast the desire for a more comprehensive holistic approach and the de-
sire for a more focused one. While this makes the possibility of developing 'one
single behaviorally-based, policy-relevant and socially-agreed measure' seem less
feasible, it emphasizes the need for a frame of reference within which a variety of
accessibility measures can be developed and compared. In this connection, it is
reasonable to ask whether NIT will provide the appropriate 'environment'. So far,
great promise and enthusiasm has been raised by the 'hard' component of NIT.
The soft' component, however, is still largely unexplored and poses an important
challenge for the analysis of accessibility.

References
Amin, A. (ed.) 1994. Post-Fordism. Oxford: Blaekwell.
Andersson, A.E., Batten. D.F., Kobayashi. K. and Yoshikawa, K. (eds.) 1993. The Cosmo-
Creative Society, Berlin: Springer.
Batten, D.F. 1995. Network cities: Creative urban agglomeration for the '1"1 Century. Ur-
ban Studies 32 (2) 313-27.
Batty, M. 1995. Cities and eomp1exity. Implieations for modeling sustainability. In
Brotehie, J. Batty, M., Blakely, E., Hall, P. and Newton, P. (eds.) Cities in Competition.
Productive and Sustainable Cities tor the 21 st Century. Melboume: Longman Australia,
469-86.
Batty, M. and Xie, Y. 1996. Possible urban automata. In Besussi, E. and Ceeehini, A. (eds.)
Artificial Words and Urban Studies, Venezia: Daest, Convegni, no.l, 176-205.
Ben-Akiva, M. and Lerman, R. 1979. Disaggregate travel and mobility: Choice models and
easures of aeeessibility. In Hensher, D.A. and Stopher, P.R. (eds.) Behavioural Travel
Modeling, London: Croom Helm, 654-79.
Bennett, R.J. and MeCoshan, A. 1993. Enterprise and Human Resource Development. Liv-
erpool: Chapman.
Bertuglia, C.S., Lombardo, S. and Oeeelli, S. 1995. The interaeting ehoiee proeesses of
innovation, loeation and mobility: A compartmental approach. In Bertuglia, C.S.,
Fischer, M.M. and Preto, G. (eds.) Technological Change, Economic Development and
Space, Berlin: Springer, 118-44.
Bertuglia, C.S., and Occelli, S. 1995. Transportation, communications and patterns ofloca-
tion. In Bertuglia, C.S., Fischer, M.M. and Preto, G. (eds.) Technological Change, Eco-
nomic Development and Space, Berlin: Springer, 92-117.
Bertuglia, C.S., and Occelli, S. 1997. The impact ofthe new communications technologies
on economic-spatial systems. An agenda for future research, Paper presented at the Inter-
 Revisiting the Concept of Accessibility 299

national Seminar The Impact of the New Communieations Teehnologies on Eeonomie-

Spatial Systems. Pisa: September, 12-13.
Bertuglia, C.S., Clarke, G.P., Wilson, A.G. (eds.) 1994. Modeling the City: Performance,
Policy and Planning, London: Routledge.
Brotchie, J.F. 1986. Technological change and urban form, Environment and Planning A
16:583-96.
Brotchie, J.F., Anderson, M. and McNamara, C. 1995. Changing metropolitan commuting
pattern. In Brotchie, J., Batty, M., Blakely, E., Hall P. and Newton, P. (eds.) CWes in
Competition. Produetive and Sustainable Cities for the 21'1 Century. Melbourne: Long-
man Australia, 382-401.
Bruinsma, K. and Rietveld, P. 1998. The accessibility of European cities: Theoretical
framework and comparison of approaches, Environment and Planning A 30:499-521.
Bryson, M.J. and Crosby, B.C. 1998. Policy planning and the design and use of forums,
arenas and courts, Environment and Planning B 20: 175-94.
Burns, L.D. 1979. Transportation, Temporal, and Spatial Components of Aeeessibility.
Lexington MA: Lexington Books.
Carlstein, T., Parkes, D. and Thrift, N. 1978. Introduction, in T. Carlstein. In Parkes, D. and
Thrift, N. (eds.) Time and Regional Dynamies. London: Edward Arnold, 1-4.
Clarke, G.P.and Wilson, A.G. 1987a. Performance indicators and model-based planning: 1.
The indicator movement and the possibilities for urban planning, Sistemi Urbani 9:79-
127.
Clarke, G.P. and Wilson, A.G. 1987b. Performance indicators and model-based planning: 2.
Model-based approach es, Sistemi Urbani 9: 137-69.
Castells, M. 1989. The Informational City. Cambridge: Blackwell.
Casti, J.L. 1984. On the theory of models and the modeling of natural phenomena. In
Bahrenberg, G., Fischer, M.M. and Nijkamp, P. (eds.), Reeent Developments in Spatial
Data Analysis, Gower, Aldershot, 73-92.
Casti, J.L. 1986. On system complexity: identification, measurement, and management. In
Casti, J.L., and Karlqvist, A. (eds.) Complexity, Language and Life: Mathematieal Ap-
proaches, Berlin: Springer, 146-73.
Couc1elis, H. 1984. The notion of prior structure in urban modeling, Environment and
Planning A 16:319-38.
Couc1elis, H. 1996. From cellular automata to urban models: new principles for model de-
velopment and implementation. In Besussi, E. and Cecchini, A. (eds.) Artifieial Worlcls
and Urban Studies. Venezia: Daest, Convegni n.l, 165-75.
Couc1elis, H. (ed.) 1996. Spatial Teehnologies, Geographie Information, and the City,
Technical Report 96-10. Santa Barbara, CA: NCGIA,:
Dalvi, M.Q. and Martin, K.M. 1976. The measurement of accessibility: some preliminary
resuits, Transportation 5: 17-42.
Freeman, C. and Perez, C. 1988. Structural crises of adjustment: business cyc1es and in-
vestment behaviour. In Dosi, G., Freeman, C., Nelson, R., Silverberg, G. and Soete, L.
(eds.) Teehnieal Change and Eeonomie Theory. London: Pinter, 38-66.
Friend, J.K, and Jessop, W.N. 1969. Loeal Government and Strategie Choiee. London:
Tavistock
Graham, S. and Marvin, S. 1996. Teleeommunieations and the City. London: Routledge.
Hägerstrand, T. 1975. Space time and human condition. In Karlkvist, A., Lundqvist, Land
Snickars, F. (eds.) Dynamie Alloeation ofUrban Spaee. Farnborough Saxon House, 3-12.
300 S. Occelli

Handy, S.L. and Niemeier, D.A. 1997. Measuring accessibility: an exploration ofissues and
alternatives. Environment and Planning A 29: 1175-94.
Hansen, W.G. 1959 How accessibility shapes land use. Journal o/the American institute 0/
Planners 25:73-6.
Hanson, S. 1984. Environmental cognition and travel behaviour. In Herbert, D.T. and
Jonhston, R.J. (eds.) Geography and the Urban Environment, New York: Wiley, vol. VI,
95-126.
Hanson, S. and Schwab, M. 1987. Accessibility and intraurban travel, Environment and
Planning A 19:735-48.
Helling, A 1998. Changing intra-metropolitan accessibility in the U.S.: Evidence from
Atlanta, Diamond, D. and Massam, B.H. (eds.) Progress in Planning, London: Perga-
mon, 55-107.
Holly, B.P. 1978. The problem ofscale in time-space research. In Carlstein, T., Parkes, D.
and Thrift, N. (eds.) Time and Regional Dynamics. London: Edward Arnold, 5-18.
Ingram, R.D. 1971. The concept ofaccessibility, Regional Studies 5:101-07.
IRES 1995. Un'analisi dell'accessibilita in Piemonte. Studio di supporto aHa valutazione
delle politiche deI piano regionale dei trasporti. Occelli, S.and Gallino, T. (eds.) Turin:
Quaderni di Ricerca Ires, 74.
Knight, R.V. 1995. Knowledge-based development: policy and planning implications for
cities, Urban Studies 32:225-60.
Kobayashi, K., Sunao, S. and.Yoshikawa, K. 1993. Spatial equilibria ofknowledge produc-
tion with 'meeting-facilities.' In.Andersson, AE., Batten, D.F., Kobayashi K. and Yoshi-
kawa, K. (eds.) The Cosmo-Creative Society, Berlin: Springer, 219-44.
Koenig, J.G. 1980. Indicators of urban accessibility: Theory and application. Transporta-
tion 9:145-72.
Kwan, M-P. 1998. Space-time and integral measures of individual accessibility: a compara-
tive analysis using a a point-based framework. Geographical Analysis 30(3):191-216.
Leonardi, G. 1979. Introduzione alla teoria dell'accessibilita, Sistemi Urbani 1:65-88.
Martellato, D. 1993. Reti di interazione e tecnologia della informazione. Un'analisi dei loro
effetti sulla locaHzzazione. In Lombardo, S. and Preto, G. (eds.) innovazione e tras/or-
mazioni della cittil. Teorie, metodi e programm i per il mutamento, Milano: Collana AiS-
Rre, AngeH, 130-47.
Miles, I., and Robins, K. 1992. Making sense of information, in Robins, K. (ed.) Under-
standing information, Business, Technology and Geography, London: Belhaven, 1-26.
Morris, J.M., Dumble, P.L. and Wigan, AR. 1979. Accessibility indicators for transport
planning. Transportation Research 13A:91-109.
Papageorgiou, G. 1987. Spatial public goods, 1: Theory, Environment and Planning A
19:471-92.
Occelli, S. 1998a. Accessibility and time use in a post-Fordist urban system. Some notes for
a research agenda, Paper presented at The International Conference on Time Use, Lune-
berg, 22-25April.
OcceIli, S. 1998b. A New Perspective for methodologies in spatial and urban analysis. In
Bertuglia, C.S., Bianchi, G. and Mela, A (eds.) The City and its Sciences, Berlin:
Springer 851-72.
Pirie, G.H. 1979. Measuring accessibility: A review and Proposal, Environment and Plan-
ning A 11 :299-312.
 Revisiting the Concept of Accessibility 301

Rabino, G.A. 1996. Complessita, scienza della complessita e modello dei trasporti, Le
Strade.
Rabino, G.A. and Occelli, S. 1997. Re-thinking urban system modeling: New features and a
proposal, Paper presented at the ICCS Conference, Cortona, 22-25 September.
Toulemonde, J. 1995. Should evaluation be freed from its causallinks, Evaluation in Pro-
gram Planning 1(1): 179-90.
Turoff, M. (1997) Virtuality, Communications 40(9):38-43.
Vickerman, R.W. 1974. Accessibility attraction and potential: A review of some concepts
and their use in determining mobility, Environment and Planning A 6:675-91.
Wachs, M.and Koenig, lG. 1979. Behavioral modeling, accessibility, mobility. In Hensher,
D.A. and Stopher, P.R. (eds.) Behavioural Travel Modeling. London: Croom Helm, 698-
710.
Weibull, J.W. 1980. On the numerical measurement of accessibility. Environment and
Planning A 12:53-67.
Wilson, A.G. 1971. A family of spatial interaction models and associated developments.
Environment and Planning A 3:1-32.
18 Legal Aeeess to Geographie Information:
Measuring Losses or Developing Responses?

Harlan J. Onsrud

Department of Spatial Infonnation Science and Engineering, University of Maine, Orono

ME 04469-5711, USA. Email: onsrud@spatial.maine.edu

18.1 Introduction

A major proposition prevalent in the geographic information research community

is that better models, tools and techniques are needed to measure and represent
changes in access as more and more of the interactions and transactions of our
daily lives occur electronically. Measures or representations from these tools and
techniques will purportedly help us identify the winners and losers in society as
we move to electronic social interaction environments. However, the losers quite
often are obvious and a focus on measuring losses in such situations seems mis-
placed when energies might be better spent on lessening or reversing such losses.
Further, measurement tools are often used by those in power positions in attempts
to refute that losses are actually occurring. This is because many of the benefits of
access and costs of lack of access (such as missed opportunities) are very difficult
to measure or otherwise quantify in a convincing manner. In addition, by focusing
on the scientific reliability of tools and measurements, those in power positions
often are able to divert attention and energy away from the goals of opponents that
otherwise would undermine their control over access.
In many instances, it is far more important for those advocating increased access
or more equitable access to identify the processes by which losses in access are
occurring, publicize that the losses are occurring, explore alternatives for halting
or reversing the losses, and seek solutions for expanding access or providing more
equitable access. Measuring, mapping, and modeling the nature and extent of
changes in access are important but not if such efforts divert attention from arriv-
ing at solutions for enhancing access.
In this chapter the argument is made that the foundations of legal rights of citi-
zens to access information are being undermined as we move into networked digi-
tal data environments. As a result, widespread loss of access to information and
works of knowledge in U.S. society is occurring. The flood of data provided by
emergent technologies is being channeled rapidly through legal mechanisms to
provide wealth and power to very limited sectors of society. While citizens may be
304 H. J. Onsrud

looking forward to more meaningful dialogue among each other and with gov-
ernment in future electronic environments, they should also be aware that past
gains made in the ability to access and build upon the works of others and gains
made towards increasing the transparency of government operations are being
eroded. Measuring and modeling the who, what, when, and where of such losses
isn't as important as understanding the manner in which such losses are occurring
and exploring alternatives by which such losses might be avoided.

18.2 Background

The United States is unique in the world in the broad access to information that its
laws support. Areas of the law influencing access to information, geographic or
otherwise, include intellectual property law, freedom of information law, privacy
law, electronic contracting law, and anti trust law, as weil as several other areas of
the law. Two generalizations about the interoperation of these laws appear ger-
mane to the topic of this book.

The First Generalization. The forms that these laws take in the United States
allow greater access to government iriformation at the local, state, and national
government levels and use of that information than is generally allowed in other
nations. For instance, few nations have national freedom of information laws that
allow citizens broad general access to the public records of government. 1 Even in
those nations that do allow such access, citizens are not allowed typically to add
value to such information and resell it without the permission of government as
they are allowed to do in the United States. In addition, the United States goes
much further than other nations since it actually imposes affirmative obligations
on federal agencies to actively disseminate their information as defined by the
provisions of OMB Circular A-130 (June 1993). Agencies are particularly encour-
aged to disseminate raw content upon which value-added products may be built by
the private sector and to do so at the cost of dissemination, with no imposition of
restrictions on the use of the data and through a diversity of channels. The core
provisions of OMB Circular A-130 were incorporated into the Paperwork Reduc-
tion Act of 1995 (PRA) and that act additionaily encourages the use of information
technologies by agencies for providing public access, rather than relying on cum-
bersome Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) processes. With the expanded use of
World Wide Web servers by federal agencies, the cost of dissemination for many

1 Fifteen nations that have general open government records laws, several of which are
recent, are listed at http://www.cfoi.org.uk/foioverseas.html.
 Legal Aeeess to Geographie Information 305

federal governrnent data sets has beeome negligible and, thus, these data sets are
now freely available to anyone with the ability to access them over the Internet. 2
Actions have also been taken at the federal level specifically related to spatial
information and agency contributions to building the National Spatial Data Infra-
structure (NSDI). The Office of Management and Budget (OMB) established the
Federal Geographie Data Committee (FGDC) in its 1990 revision of Circular A-
16, Coordination of Surveying, Mapping, and Related Spatial Data Activities.
FGDC is now composed of representatives from 17 Cabinet level and independent
Federal agencies. In April 1994, President Clinton signed Executive Order 12906
that called for the establishment of a coordinated National Spatial Data Infrastruc-
ture (NSDI) as part of the evolving National Information Infrastructure (NIl), and
FGDC was charged with coordinating the federal governrnent's development of
the NSDI. In this executive order, FGDC was given a mandate to involve state,
local and tribai governrnents, academia and the private sector in coordinating the
development of the NSDI. The roles of various parties and their relationships in
moving towards a common NSDI vision are being developed over time.
Similar to the federal situation, open access laws exist in most of our states that
impose similar broad principles of access by citizens to the records of state and
local governrnent agencies. Because of this atmosphere of openness, many local
municipal, county, and state governrnents have voluntarily been making geo-
graphie data sets available on the web for general use by for-profit businesses, not-
for-profit organizations, and citizens generally. 3
Rights of access to governrnent information and the atmosphere of openness that
these rights engender are currently very significant. We should not allow these
rights to be chipped away at through growing numbers of legislative exceptions
for geographie information databases and other governrnent databases.

The Second Generalization. u.s. law grants individuals greater leeway to use
the work products of others without perm iss ion than is typically granted by the
laws of other nations. The law of copyright in the United States grants fewer own-
ership interests in intellectual works and greater access to the work products of
others than in perhaps any other industrialized nation. Again, we should not aban-

2 Data sets available from U.S. federal ageneies may be traeed typieally through their offi-
cial web sites indexed at http://leweb.1oe.gov/globallexeeutive/fed.html. Examples of spa-
tial data sets available from federal ageneies inc1ude those found through
http://www.usgs.gov/themes/info.html, http://www.eensus.gov/ftp/pub/www/tiger/,
http://www.epa.gov/epahome/data, and http://gemd.gsfe.nasa.gov/.
3 See http://reeorder.marieopa.gov/reeorder/imagingl for an example of open web aeeess to
deeds and plats; see http://www.ei.ontario.ea.us/for an example of aceess to eommunity
geographie information; or see http://fgdec1earhs.er.usgs.gov/ for state and eommunity
c1earinghouse nodes.
306 H. J. Onsrud

don this high level of access to the information sources and products produced by
others without substantial social benefit reasons for doing so.
The United States has productive scientific and commercial database communi-
ties that are the envy of the world. The vitality of these two communities go hand-
in-hand. The govemment, commercial, and not-for-profit sectors have all bene-
fited by the past balance of legal policies that has minimized the need to pay for
access and use of data drawn from other govemment, commercial and not-for-
profit sector sources. For-profit private sector creators of derivative databases
have gained as much or more from this policy balance than any other societal sec-
tor. Although both new innovations and past investments are protected under U.S.
law, the current complex balance in the law provides a tension in favor of new
innovations over past investments. This keeps competition and the need to inno-
vate high. The level of activity and growth of the database industry in the United
States in comparison to other nations is evidence that a flexible ability to draw
from and build upon the data sets collected by others is highly desirable for eco-
nomic development. The strong health and high activity of the U.S. database in-
dustry also suggests that there is no crisis at hand that would warrant granting the
private commercial sector immediate greater control over the data it collects.
Geographic data, like many other forms of scientific and technical data, possess
the classic characteristics of public goods. That is, geographic data are typically
nonrival and nonexcludable. In short, a nonrival good is one that may be con-
sumed without detracting in the least from consumption of the same good by oth-
ers. By example, the use of digital data for finding one's way does not make the
same data any less useful to others for finding their way. A nonexcludable good is
one whose benefits are available to all once the good is provided. Once nonex-
cludable benefits are provided they may be very difficult or perhaps impossible to
exclude from others even though others may not have helped pay for the good.
Due to the ability to copy data electronically and transfer it over networks at neg-
ligible cost, data made available to small numbers of persons are often transferred
to much wider audiences regardless of the contractual provisions stipulated and
the technical protection techniques used, such as electronic watermarking or en-
cryption. Geographic data, as wen as many other forms of factual data, are addi-
tionally nonexcludable in that others may recollect the same or substitutable data.
It is because ofthese public goods characteristics that much geographic data in the
United States has been collected in the past by govemment and access provided to
all as a general public benefit.
The commercial sector has little incentive to collect data possessing the charac-
teristics of a public good unless some form of subsidy is provided. Copyright law,
by example, is a subsidy established by law that provides an incentive for creators
to select and arrange data to make it more useful for society. Any consumer of the
original and creative selection or arrangement is required to subsidize the creator
(or owner) by paying a higher price than would otherwise be required. Because
education and research also have socially desirable outcomes, those copying an
authored data set for education and research activities are not required to pay the
 Legal Aeeess to Geographie Information 307

subsidy under certain circumstances (i.e., see the fair use provisions of the Us.
Copyright Act). Similarly, any other person or concem may extract factual infor-
mation from a data set without paying a subsidy or asking for permission as long
as that person doesn't copy creative original aspects ofthe work and as long as that
person is not breaching a contract with the owner. Further, the first safe doctrine
of copyright law (17 U.S.c., section 109) specifically authorizes the owner of a
legally acquired copy to seil or otherwise dispose ofthe copy and thus subsequent
sales of a copy do not require further subsidy payments to the creator (e.g., resale
of a typically purchased book or CD). These examples iIIustrate that copyright
owners have never had the ability to extract the full market value from their
works. Protection for copyright owners has been established by the law over time
at a level that provides strong incentives to produce works of authorship but not at
a level so high that author rights significantly impinge upon society's interest in
allowing the public to make reasonable use of authored works. Society benefits
more in terms of advancement of science, the arts, and the overall economy if rea-
sonable leeway is provided to allow each of us to draw from and build upon the
works of others.
It is noteworthy that the United States gained significant economic strength and
dominance in information technologies, as weil as in research and technology
generally, at a time when its information laws were very different from those of
other nations. The role of U.S. laws and policies in supporting an open environ-
ment of access to scientific data for the commercial and science sectors and the
role of U.S. laws in ensuring access to govemment data sets should not be over-
looked when exploring the competitive success of U.S. businesses and scientists.

18.3 The Diminishment of Legal Access

Observation of recent actions in Congress and legislative actions at the state and
local govemment levels suggest that the nation is back tracking on its openness
principles rather than extending them. Some observations of recent lawmaking in
action include the following.

(1) Cost Recovery Legislation. Restricting access to public records is contrary to

the plain letter language of most state open records laws in the United States and,
therefore, explicit legislation is typically required to allow local govemments to
restriet access to their geographie data sets. Thus, some state and local govem-
ments have altered their legislation accordingly and are now imposing intellectual
property and ownership rights in the datasets created for public purposes and are
attempting to generate revenue streams from secondary uses of the data (Onsrud,
Johnson, and Winnecki 1996). However, to sell govemment data to a few private
308 H. J. Onsrud

firms that can afford the data benefits primarily those privileged firms at the ex-
pense of the general public and the loss of widespread general benefits to the
community. Those who seek to impose restrictions on citizen access should be
required to overcome the underlying policy arguments on which such laws are
based, foremost of which are that open access keeps government accountable and
that open access to government information has far greater long-term economic
benefits for a community than does pursuing revenue generation approaches.

(2) Database Legislation. Proposed Title V of the Digital Millennium Copyright

Act 0/1998 (H.R. 2281 and S. 2037) if enacted into law would have severely con-
strained the 'fair use' provisions of copyright law relative to the use of commer-
cial datasets and would have had a chilling effect on the academic and research
communities. Of particular concern in the proposed legislation was the lack of
definition of the term 'market harm', as it would be imposed against universities.
The length of time for protection of databases would be perpetual since even mi-
nor updates in an electronic database would toll another 15 years of protection.
Thus, if title V had been legislated in the 1998 session, data would never pass into
the public domain. It is public domain datasets that have allowed V.S. businesses
and scientists to make so much progress in advancing information system tech-
nologies and scientific discovery. There was broad consensus among the research
and academic community that the bill as drafted would have had significant nega-
tive impacts on research and education in the nation. Due to heavy lobbying on the
part of the academic, scientific, and library communities, the database provision
was stripped from the Digital Millennium Copyright Act 0/ 1998 that was other-
wise passed into law.

NOTE: Representative Howard Coble (R-NC) agreed to a commitment by Senator

Orrin Hatch (R-UT) to revisit the database issue during the 1999 session of Congress.
Senator Orrin Hatch introduced into the Congressional Record three major legislative
models for discussion on 19 January 1999. At the time ofthis writing the House Com-
mittee on Commerce has introduced a slightly modified version of one of the models
(see H.R. 1858, The Consumer and Investor Access to IriformationAct of 1999,20 May
1999) while the House Committee on the Judiciary has passed a revised version of one
ofthe competing models (see H.R. 354, The Collections ofInformation Antipiracy Act,
26 May 1999). Further action is expected in the 2000 session ofCongress.

(3) Extension of Time for Copyright. The special genius of the Vnited States
copyright system has been its emphasis on an appropriate balance of public and
private interests. V.S. dominance in international trade in current products of au-
thorship has been made possible because of the rich and vibrant public domain
passed down from earlier authors. Proposed legislation (H.R. 989) would extend
the term of copyright protection for all copyrights, including copyrights on exist-
ing works, by 20 years. For individual authors, the copyright term would extend
 Legal Access to Geographie Information 309

for 70 years after the death of the author, while corporate authors would have a
term of protection of 95 years. Unpublished or anonymous works would be pro-
tected for aperiod of 120 years after their creation. The enactment of this legisla-
tion would impose substantial costs on the U.S. general public without supplying
any public benefit. It would provide a windfall to the heirs and assignees of au-
thors long since deceased, at the expense of the general public, and impair the
ability of living authors to build on the cultural legacy of the past. The proposed
extension would supply no additional incentive to the creation of new works - and
it obviously supplies no incentive to the creation of works already in existence.
The notion that copyright is supposed to be a welfare system to two generations of
descendants has never been a part of American copyright philosophy. It is not
wifair that a work enters the public domain 50 years after the death of its author.
Rather, that is an integral part of the social bargain on which our highly successful
system has always been based. After supplying a royalty stream for such a long
time, these old works should be available as bases on which current authors can
continue to create culturally and economically valuable new products (extracted
and rearranged from Karjala (1995)).

NOTE: In spite of such arguments and widespread opposition by the academic and li-
brary communities, both the V.S. Senate and House passed on 7 October 1998 a 20-
year extension ofthe then existing life-plus-50-year copyright term4 .

(4) Article 2B of the Uniform Commercial Code. Proposed Article 2B seeks to

regulate almost all transactions in information. It could affect everything from
whether book publishers start shrink wrapping books to restrict sharing to whether
Internet robots can make legally binding contracts for computer users who unleash
them. It is a so-called model law that each state legislature can accept or reject.
States usually adopt model laws put forward in the Uniform Commercial Code so
that business transactions across state lines remain consistent. Among other ef-
fects, Article 2B could chill the 'fair use' doctrine that the public and libraries
depend on to share information. Like computer software, which is often packaged
with the admonition that whoever breaks the seal is bound by the terms of an en-
closed manufacturer's contract, so too books could be wrapped in cellophane and
sold with all types of !imitations. Article 2B would affect U.S. innovation - a vital
engine driving business entrepreneurship and economic growth - by discouraging
information sharing (extracted and rearranged from Samuelson 7/16/98).

4 For background information, see http://www.public.asu.edu/~dkarjalaJindex.html and for

information on a constitutional challenge to the new legislation, see
http://cyber.law.harvard. edu/cc/press.html
3lO H. J. Onsrud

NOTE: The proposed article to the Uniform Cornmereial Code has been withdrawn
but now is being pursued by the Uniform Law Cornmissioners as an independent aet
under the title Uniform Computer Information Transactions Acr. Thus the proposal is
still under aetive eonsideration even though widely opposed by very diverse groups
ranging from film studios to eonsumer groups.

These are but a few illustrative examples of major attempts continually occur-
ring in our legislative halls in attempts to restrict citizen access to public domain
and government information. Thus, the assumptions of access to which we may
have become accustomed when we operated in a paper world should not be taken
for granted as data, information, and works of knowledge are transferred more and
more by electronic means.

18.4 Expanding Citizen Rights in Information

In addition to fending off attempts to diminish citizen access to electronic infor-

mation, there is a need to develop new approaches and models that might be used
to expand citizen rights to information or alter the relationship between citizens
and government in decision-making processes.
I have argued in past writings that we are witnessing tragedy of the information
commons dynamics similar to tragedy of the commons dynamics witnessed in the
environmental field (Onsrud 1998). Extending from this analogy I have argued
that we may draw from the methods and techniques developed by environmental-
ists in combating the destruction of the environmental commons and apply them to
combat the diminishment of public rights in data, information, and knowledge
works. For instance, one of the favored and most effective techniques of environ-
mentalists in protecting the environmental commons has been to expose a full-cost
accounting of the effects of actions that diminish or despoil the commons. By ex-
ample, pollution is often highly illogical for a community when the costs external
to the decision-maker are added to the evaluation process. The same economic
analysis techniques may be applied to information commons disputes. By further
example, 'major Federal actions significantly affecting the quality of the environ-
ment' may only proceed after preparation of an environmental impact statement
that must fully document the positive and negative impacts of the proposed action
and possible alternatives to the proposed action. While preparation and thoughtful
consideration of such statements was once quite controversial, this procedure is
now an accepted practice with both agency personnel and the general public, and
the approach has been copied by many other nations. Perhaps one way of revers-

5 See http://www.2BGuide.eom.
 Legal Aeeess to Geographie Information 311

ing the trend of building walls around government information would be to require
of government officials an 'information access impact statement' for any major
state or local government action significantly affecting the quality of citizen ac-
cess to government information. Many additional political and legislative lessons
may be gleaned from the experiences of the environmental community in protect-
ing the environmental commons.
Looking outside of the environmental-Iaw realm, additional specific legal provi-
sions or policies that might be advocated in expanding information access to sci-
entific and technical data in the public interest might include the following:

(a) Legislate the first safe doctrine in networked electronic environments in in-
stances where technology allows no more than one user of a purchased intel-
lectual work at a time.

Discussion. Under copyright law as applied to traditional media, one is able

to read or privately perform works without obtaining permission of the copy-
right owner. Some are suggesting that the same rule should be considered for
application in the networked digital world (Samuelson 1996). One can envi-
si on a future situation in which a library might purchase five copies of a spa-
tial data set from a publisher and use a technological solution whereby no
more than five patrons could use the data set at any one time, whether physi-
cally at the library or from a distance. The control system might be similar to
the current systems that are used on many university campuses to limit the
number of simultaneous users of software on a network to the number of
copies that have been purchased legally. Such systems are already being de-
veloped (Stefik 1997, Stefik and Lavendel 1997). A patron might check out a
copy for two days to extract data and after that time period the data set auto-
matically would become disabled while the copy at the library simultane-
ously would become enabled again. Through this technological arrangement
it may be argued that the first safe doctrine and the lending arrangements that
the doctrine enables could be applied by right in networked electronic envi-
ronments to largely support the same principles that the doctrine supports in
the current library environment of intellectual works contained on physical
media.

(b) Legislate a depository library concept in which publishers to gain certain

benefits must provide a digital copy of intellectual works and datasets to a na-
tional online collection that would then be accessible from public libraries
across the nation (Nunberg 1998). By ensuring that all works to gain protec-
ti on are publicly deposited, libraries would conclusively know the date when
the copyright or other legislative protection of a digital product expires since
they would have possessed a copy for the statutory period.
312 H. J. Onsrud

(c) Alternatively, if a licensing paradigm continues for access to online scientific

and technical data, a portion of fees collected might be set aside (taxed) to
subsidize access for schools and libraries in rural or under-served communi-
ties (Nunberg 1998).

(d) Development of standard licensing provisions and policies by libraries.

DiscussioD. The library community has been constructing its own set of
standard licensing provisions with the implication that many librarians and
the economic bloc they represent will no longer contract or license with elec-
tronic publishers that do not adhere to the library community's recommended
licensing provisions6 • Is this approach realistic? How may the library com-
munity position be strengthened without running afoul of antitrust laws and
without devoting larger proportions of the library community's resources
over time to licensing negotiations and the tracking of adherence to licensing
provisions? Although the library as an institution may try to act in the best
interests of its user community, in an economic marketplace negotiation en-
vironment, when push comes to shove, will there be a strong tendency for the
library to act in its own best economic interests, and to sacrifice some social
welfare interests of its user community?

(e) Development of university policies or funding agency policies that mandate

that professors and researchers must maintain full non-exclusive rights in any
works or datasets developed in their capacity as university professors or re-
searchers (Guernsey 1998).

Discussion. Under this approach, virtually all copyright or other legal rights
in authored works or data sets might be transferred by professors to publish-
ers but, with the exception of the right of first publication, transfer of exclu-
sive rights would not be permitted. Retention of full non-exclusive rights by
universities would be for the purpose of letting the works or data enter the
public domain at the option ofthe university, particularly under marketplace-
failure circumstances. Because transfer of exclusive rights to private parties
works against development of a common public domain in scientific works
and technical data sets and thus works against scientific advancement, those
professors and researchers transferring exclusive rights to publishers or oth-
ers would have their works devalued by the university recognition and re-
ward system processes. What would such a model policy for universities or
funding agencies look like?

6 See for example, http://www.library.yale.edulconsortia/icolcpr.htm.

 Legal Aeeess to Geographie Information 313

I view all of the approaches mentioned so far as pragmatic proposals that may be
used internal to the current legal system to make our society more responsive to
protecting public access and the public commons in information. Within the envi-
ronmental realm, another approach that has been far less successful to date has
been to argue that there is something inherently wrong and unjust about the whole
concept of real property ownership and to move to different models and concepts
of ownership and rights in land. To deal with the environmental problems of the
nation and the world, the argument is made that the current legal system can't
support an appropriate solution and therefore we need to step outside of the con-
straints of the current legal and political system to arrive at systems that would be
more responsive to the needs ofthe environment.
Vandana Shiva suggests that there is something rotten at the core of ownership
claims in information and treatment of information as a commodity to be sought
and sold. Rather than hone the existing legal and social models that assume that
the current inequities in society are a given, she argues that there is a need to ex-
plore whole new models and theories of rights to access and use of data, informa-
tion, and knowledge works. She offers a non-western, global, and community con-
trol perspective in which neither the state nor the market provide the organizing
principles of how people live and how nature's wealth is owned and used (Shiva
1994, 1997).
Practical incremental approaches in expanding rights to information within the
existing legal framework and wholesale reevaluation approaches are not mutually
exclusive. Even though treatment of information as a commodity may be a social
construct, information is, in fact, being treated as a commodity in our local com-
munities, at the national level and throughout the globe on a day-to-day commer-
cial basis as weIl as through the imposition of intellectual property rights laws.
One may try to limit and adapt intellectual property rights laws to help ensure con-
tinued access to information and the continued development of public domain data
or one may suggest complete new models or views on how control over informa-
tion should be handled. The academic community should pursue both of these
approaches.
As we already know, access, whether in the form of technically meaningful ac-
cess or legal access does not guarantee power. Nor do consensus building or other
participatory processes equalize political power. Measuring or modeling access, as
weIl, does very little to affect power relationships. However, all of these are useful
tools for aiding in struggles to gain political power. Paul Schroeder has noted that
changing the conditions of power in society would have a substantial influence on
changing the conditions of access to and handling of information (Schroeder
1998). Therefore, the implication is that to change the conditions of access one
should focus primarily on altering power bases in society. Yet, the alternative ap-
proach of direcdy changing specific rights in information also has an influence
over power and wealth in society. If this were not the case we would not see such
intense lobbying in Congress over rights in information at the current time. Near
the core of this power struggle lies the debate over development of a concept of
314 H. J. Onsrud

human rights that could counteract or limit existing corporate and govemment
agency powers in US. society.

18.5 Changing the Power Structure

In assessing the justice of a particular outcome of a participatory decision making

process, Nyerges and Jankowski (1998) citing Lober (1995) refers to three differ-
ent interpretations of fairness. In determining where to locate a hazardous waste
facility the example is cited in which the use of three different definitions of fair-
ness would have resulted in three different optimal locations for siting the waste
facility. An egalitarian interpretation of justice benefits the most disadvantaged in
society and, thus, may be characterized as an approach that minimizes pain. A
libertarian interpretation of justice provides for unrestrained interactions among
individuals and, therefore, may be characterized as maximizing liberty. A utilitar-
ian interpretation of justice pro vi des the greatest happiness for the greatest number
and therefore may be characterized as maximizing happiness. I was struck by the
fact that these three views of justice are mirrored very closely in the U S. Declara-
ti on of Independence in the phrase' life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.'
Charles Black Jr., former Dean of the Yale Law School, recently authored a
book in which he states and supports 'my own life's conclusions' (Black 1997).
After fifty years of professional thought and work surrounding Constitutional law
issues, a major conclusion in his life has been that the 'foundations of American
human-rights law are in bad shape.' He tempers this bold statement by going on
to insist that asound and well-reasoned basis for anational American law of hu-
man rights already exists under U.S. law in 'three imperishable commitments - the
opening phrases of the Declaration of Independence, the Ninth Amendment, and
the 'citizenship' and the 'privileges and immunities' clauses of the Fourteenth
Amendment. He argues forcefully and convincingly that a nation that holds itself
out as apower dedicated to securing human rights must provide a basis for sound
human rights for its own citizens. If U.S. constitutional law was reinterpreted to
support strong human rights for US. citizens based on the foundations advocated
by Charles Black, the resultant legal framework would protect all three forms of
justice described in the preceding paragraph and would balance these rights
against each other.
Neither protecting access to information nor taking part in consensus building
processes actually change power structures. However, a shift in constitutionallaw,
such as suggested by Charles Black, towards strong protection of human rights
would have a substantial and long-term effect on empowering groups and indi-
viduals and would greatly limit the ability of govemment and other powerful par-
ties to marginalize other groups and individuals in society.
 Legal Aeeess to Geographie Information 315

18.6 Conclusion

In the past, U.S. law has supported the proposition that citizens should have broad
and open access to government information at local, state, and national govern-
ment levels. In addition, U.S. laws have granted greater leeway than the laws of
other nations to use the work products of others without permission in order that
access and new innovations should be promoted and take precedence over wealth
generated from old innovations. Both of these general principles are being se-
verely challenged as publishers and government agencies use the threat of digital
technology as an opportunity to limit the rights of citizens to access information.
Assuming that legal access to government information and other forms of infor-
mation and intellectual works may be maintained, most of us want increased ac-
cess to information as more and more of our daily activities are accomplished and
relationships are established within digital environments. We want technical ac-
cess to data, information or knowledge that is efficient, effective, and responsive
to our specific needs. We want pro ce dural capabilities and methods that will allow
groups affected by decisions to be engaged with each other in constructive dia-
logue. We want access that is timely and understandable so that interested groups
may constructively participate with government in more democratic decision mak-
ing.
Although rights of access to information are insufficient conditions in them-
selves to achieve these goals, they are necessary and critical conditions. Providing
and protecting legal access to information and knowledge works is at least as im-
portant as expanding effective and efficient technical access or developing means
for measuring access. In addition, while each of these may be necessary and
highly constructive societal activities, substantial gains in power for citizens and
citizens groups will require new approaches to ownership (e.g., as suggested by
Shiva) or major realignments in our existing constitutional framework (e.g., as
suggested by Black).

Acknowledgments

Material for this ehapter was developed in preparation for two specialist meetings funded
by the Varenius projeet of NCGIA; Empowerment, Marginalization, and Publie Partieipa-
tion GIS, NCGIA Varenius Specialist Meeting, Santa Barbara CA, Oet. 1998 and Measur-
ing and Representing Aeeessibility in the Information Age, NCGIA Varenius Special ist
Meeting, Asilomar, Paeifie Grove CA, Nov. 1998.
316 H. 1. Onsrud

References
Black, C.L., Jr. 1997. A New Birth ofFreedom: Human Rights, Named and Unnamed. New
Y ork: GrossetIPutnarn.
Guernsey, L. 1998. A provost challenges his faculty to retain copyright in articles, Chroni-
cle of Higher Education, 18 Sept.
Karjala, D. 1995. WRlTTEN TESTIMONY ofDENNIS S. KARJALA, Professor ofLaw,
Arizona State University representing UNITED STATES COPYRIGHT AND
lNTELLECTUAL PROPERTY LA W PROFESSORS before HOUSE OF
REPRESENTATIVES COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY SUBCOMMITTEE ON
COURTS AND INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY on H.R. 989. A Bill to Amend Title 17,
United States Code With Respect to the Duration of Copyright, and for Other Purposes.
Rayburn House Office Building, Washington DC, l3 July.
Lober, D.J. 1995. Resolving the siting impasse: modeling social and environmental loca-
tional criteria with a Geographie Iinformation System, American Planning Association
(APA) Journal, Autumn, 482-95.
Nunberg, G. 1998. Willlibraries survive? The American Prospect Nov/Dec: 16-23.
Nyerges, T., and Jankowski. P. 1998. Empirical research strategies for investigating the use
of public participation GIS, international workshop on groupware for urban planning,
Universite C. Bernard Lyon I. Lyon, France: 3-4 Feb.
Onsrud, HJ. 1998. Tragedy of the Information Commons. In Taylor, D.R.F. (ed.) Policy
Issues in Cartography, Pergarnon: Elsevier Science Ud., 141-58.
Onsrud, H.J., Johnson, J.P., and Winnecki, J. 1996. GIS dissemination policy: two surveys
and a suggested approach, Journal ofUrban and Regional Information Systems 8:8-23.
Sarnuelson, P. 1996. The copyright grab. Wired Archive 4.01 (lan).
http://www.wired.comlwired/archive/4.01/white.paper.-pr.htm
Samuelson, P. 1998, E-mail to Cyberia-L, 16 July.
Schroeder, P. 1998. Statement made during the NCGIA Varenius Specialist Meeting on
Empowerment, Marginalization, and Public Participation GIS, Santa Barbara,CA: Oct.
Shiva, V. 1994.The recovery ofthe commons, Alternative Radio, Colorado College, Colo-
rado Springs, PO Box 551, Boulder, CO 80306, 24 Sept.
Shiva, V. 1997. Biopiracy: The Plunder of Nature and Knowledge. Boston: South End
Press.
Stefik, M. 1997. Trusted systems, Scientific American 276(3):78-81.
Stefik, M., and Lavendel, G. 1997. Libraries and Digital Property Rights. In C. Peters and
C. Thanos (eds.) Research and Advanced Technology for Digital Libraries, Proceedings
ofthe First European Conference, ECDL '97, Pisa, Italy, 1-3 September 1997. Berlin:
Springer.
19 Qualitative GIS: To Mediate, Not Dominate

Robert Mugerauer

Department of Geography, University of Texas at Austin, Austin TX 78712-1098. USA.

Email: drbob@mail.utexas.edu

19.1 Our Realm of Discourse

As Michael Goodchild reminds us 1, the Seventeenth-Century geographer, Bernard

Varenius, produced a treatise focused on two views of geography. One, clearly
related to the work ofNewton, covered general geography (dealing with a general
set of principles) and the other dealt with ideographie geography (having to do
with the special character of places). Varenius' (1650) two-fold approach affirms
what our society has forgotten, but what is in agreement with Newton himself: we
need to conceive of - there is - both absolute and relative space. The former is
assumed by physicists in the course of their abstractions and the latter is experi-
enced by ordinary people in the course of making their way in the wor/d. How-
ever, today, the powerful realm of Geographic Information Systems (GIS), for all
its potential for human understanding and good, does substantial violence by re-
quiring that all our transactions and uses translate (radically convert) our experien-
tial realms into the coded terms of GIS as based on data provided and available
only in Euclidean geometrical terms for Newtonian space.
This chapter does not in the least disparage the power of absolute space, Euclid-
ean geometry, nor general geography; but it does argue that we must reaffirm what
Varenius and Newton also contended: the specific characteristics of different
places and our everyday life experiences relative to ordinary objects must be ac-
cepted as complementary to the dominant conceptions. For GIS, this means that
we need to develop a Qualitative GIS system that allows us to access successfully
one another's lifeworlds rather than build enclaves through information technol-
ogy.
The much heralded Digital Divide between those who have access to informa-
tion technology and those who do not is even deeper in the case of GIS because
the cultural capital of marginalized groups is itself denied or cast aside when the
foreign conceptualizations of GIS are used to access the systems according to the
required technological formats. In contrast, Qualitative GIS could operate in two
ways, though which way depends on major practical and theoretical outcomes.

1 Welcoming remarks to the NCGIA Varenius Conference on Measuring and Representing

Accessibility in the Information Age, Pacific Grove CA, November 1998.
318 R. Mugerauer

Barbara Parmenter and I are conducting aseries of projects to clarity logical and
pragmatic alternatives. We begin with two assumptions: (1) GIS is structured on
formal Euclidean geometry for spatial representation and on alpha-numeric data-
base principles for informational content; and (2) current data bases represent
Newtonian-Cartesian spatial conceptions and practices. What follows is our criti-
cal question: Given these two descriptively defining characteristics, is it the case,
either theoretically and/or practically, that GIS must operate on these Euclidean-
Newtonian-Cartesian principles only? If GIS is not so limited, then Qualitative
GIS could be constructed on non-Newtonian, non-Cartesian, perhaps non-
Euclidean databases - which can be found in or derived from the already existing,
extensive ethnographic research literature and other existing data sources. On the
other hand, if GIS is strictly contained within Euclidean-Newtonian princip\es of
organization, then Qualitative GIS, strictly speaking, is impossible. The best that
could be accomplished would be a translation of qualitative properties into
Euclidean and alphanumeric representations. Even here, however, we have the
possibility of two kinds of qualitative GIS. One such qualitative GIS would com-
plement current GIS by inserting or encoding various kinds of hyper-media into
standard GIS bases, actually superimposing qualitatively distinct information upon
that standard base. The end result would be a kind of updated medieval, multi-
perceptual mapping. Recall how medieval mappings regularly presented naviga-
tion information, along with glosses and drawings that surrounded or overwrote
the basic cartography with story-telling, imaginative, theological, and other modes
of information. A contemporary version of this would electronically insert per-
sonal, local, and imaginative narrations, images, and other perceptual-qualitative
information over or through the standard GIS spatial layout. Alternately, it is pos-
sible to model mathematically various spatial configurations, for example, to rep-
resent qualitatively differentiated spatializations (raising the issue of whether such
a format would be a mapping or a modeling, a question that does not need to be
settled here). In either of the last two cases, though we would not have 'Qualita-
tive' GIS strictly speaking, we nonetheless would have something close enough to
it that, for non-specialized purposes, we would not have to apologize for and could
drop the quotation marks, setting it off more rigorously according to its epistemo-
logical grounding?
With either ofthese qualitative modes, the result would be a GIS that presents a
set of alternative geographies and alternative ways of visualizing those spaces and

2 I want to thank Professor Parmenter for her valuable contributions to this project. Not
only did she keep me on the straight and narrow by providing normative control for cor-
rect use of concepts and technical terms, and provide helpful critique on the early drafts
of this paper, but she continues to show a wonderful openness to theoretical and practical
exploration ofthe topic. As I say to our students, we make a good team, since she knows
what GIS actuaUy is, while I, relatively unencumbered by facts, then can safely propose
wild-eyed ideas. See at http://mather.ar.utexas.edu/students/cadlab/spicewoodl for more
information on our current attempt at doing Qualitative GIS for a grass-roots, neighbor-
hood natural and settlement environments project. Ifyou have questions about the project,
contact Barbara [parmentr@uts.cc.utexas.edu] or me [drbob@mail. utexas.edu]. I discuss
the project briefly at the end of this paper.
 Qualitative GIS 319

places inhabited and experienced by diverse groups - in Varenius' terms, a new

geographis specijicus. This would enfranchise groups otherwise marginalized
because it would allow them and the rest of us to begin to understand their worlds
as articulated in their own terms and as embodying their own value systems. GIS
then could manifest and affirm a multiplicity of worldviews and multiple geogra-
phi es, rather than contribute to the reductive homogenization currently taking
place. Our policy in regard to access would change: our professional and technical
missions would be to help others say what they want to say in their own terms, so
that GIS specialists could help others to delineate their own worlds. Together, we
all could become conscious of our own Iifeworlds, in their similarities and differ-
ences; consequently, we might learn to be more responsible toward all such life-
worlds, which in their intersections and tensions constitute the earth.

19.2 Problems

On whose behalf do GIS technical specialists gather and speak? It would seem
presumptuous to say, since those who may be interested in more access to GIS
would need to speak for themselves. But, they may not come forward unless in-
vited, unless encouraged. So, we need to formulate an invitation, that is, to begin
to create an opening in which they would be weIcome and in which there would
be a point to their coming. Of course, we are responding to the well-documented
need that exists because of a gulf between those who have and use electronic tele-
communication-information technology and those who do not. 3
Researchers, practitioners, and policy makers recognize increasingly that the
emerging division between 'haves' and 'have-nots' is no longer between geo-
graphically distinct first and third or fourth worlds divided according to degree of
modernization-industrialization. Instead, it is between groups with and without
access to the new information technologies and the power these bring. These new
'dual societies' often are found side by side, in the same cities and regions, in
Washington, OC and Mexico City, in rural California and France (CasteIls, Mol-
lenkkopf, and Robson 1998, Sanyal 1996).
Because highly developed information technologies, such as GIS, are both a
product of and a me ans to develop our scientific and capital-intensive culture, we
rightly assume that there are problems when these technologies are not as wide-
spread as they might be. However, the motives and reasons of various constituen-
cies using, not using, and promoting the spread of information technologies are
varied.

3 The evidence is presented in all formats and for many audiences: in books by and for aca-
demics and researchers (Investors Business Daily 1998, Loader 1998, NTIA 1997, Schil-
ler 1996). There is a rapidly growing literature on the subject. Feenberg and Hannay
(1995) is theoretically noteworthy.
320 R. Mugerauer

Some have faith in the progress of civilization through technology - a guiding

idea born in the scientific achievements and theories of the Renaissance, devel-
oped in the 19th Century's Darwinianism and Hegelian-Marxist ideas ofhistorical-
cultural-material change, and matured in the 20th Century's ho pe in technology
and expertise, exemplified in progressivism. Should not everyone benefit from
technology, which is making the entire world better?
Others, emphasizing the post-enlightenment development of democracy and its
spread across the planet, believe that universal education and access to informa-
tion are essential foundations for informed decisions, that is, for self-
determination. Thus, healthy social and economic decisions and interactions
would be possible if all share the same, maximum information.
Still others, in the expansion and intensification of international capital, realize
that the future of capitalism depends on developing and increasing new markets.
Even with the high demand for the latest hard- and software from the core elite
groups, the large 'middle-class' population's enthusiastic participation is essential
for mass consumption. And, of course, the largest portion of potential consumers,
those at the bottom of the economic and class scales in the United States and
around the world, constitute the real potential market for high-technology, just as
for consumable goods. Since this last group, by definition, does not constitute a
consumer group because it does not have money with which to purchase, it can
become a market only when the other more economically powerful groups pur-
chase on its behalf, authorizing expenditures by governments, non-profit agencies
and foundations, charitable organizations, and so on. Naturally, this third mecha-
nism works by appeal to the first two: in the name of social-material-economic
progress through technology or because of hopes for the spread of democracy, the
capital system of development and purchase may be mobilized by those with
power on behalf of those without. As should be clear, whether weIl intended or
motivated only by self-interest, our desires and practices have many layers of cul-
tural, historical, economic, and individual assumptions and values.

19.3 Epistemology and Ontology

Information, telecommunication, and geographieal systems all operate within the

same family of electronic technology. In terms of the theories of knowledge and
operational procedures, they actually constitute branches of one system, the elec-
tronie processing of information symbols based on the assumptions of classical
and contemporary physical sciences and mathematics. Without rehearsing that
background here, several key sets of assumptions can be noted. To that end, here
is my brief description of GIS:

'Upon' or 'within' a topographically correct electronic mapping of a spatial area, other

digitized data sets can be 'inscribed' or 'inserted,' so that we can examine the correla-
 Qualitative GIS 321

tion of not only spatial elements, but economic, cultural, and any other kind of data we
wish. Given the ability to see the way different dimensions of the world do or do not
correlate, we can proceed with planning ways to change conditions to more cIosely re-
alize the model we ultimately des ire.

Among the assumptions, several concern the character of space. Though New-
tonian physics has been supplanted by relativity, Newton's own theory of abstract
and relative spaces remains pragmatically adequate to explain and operate within
our earthly geo-political realms. Thus, we still use variations of Euclidean geome-
try and the concepts of absolute, abstract space in GIS because they are operation-
ally correct and adequate. The definition of a 'good' map is one that corresponds
correctly, point-by-point, with the features of the earth that objectively exist. This
uses the Newtonian idea that in order for there to be a material world at all and for
it to operate with law-like movements and forces, there first must be a containing
envelope of space. This absolutely existing space (independent of and prior to the
material bodies that come to occupy part of it) is not directly experienced, but ab-
stractly understood through the mathematical sciences. Because this space is inde-
pendent of material bodies, and a condition for their appearance, it itself is homo-
geneous--the same throughout. Differences within space are accounted for in
terms of bodies and forces among bodies. Congruently, this homogeneous space is
isotropie; that is, no 'direction' is inherently different than any other, much less
privileged. Directional differences are purely a matter of our humanly oriented
experiential-relational space.
Correlated with these spatial conceptions, developed over hundreds of years and
displacing earlier Greek-based theories of relative, heterogeneous, and anisotropie
space, there are epistemological assumptions of positive science. In brief, these
include the following: (a) It is held that the world consists of at least space, physi-
cal materials, and forces of relation and change among the elements of matter. (b)
The human mind (and parallellinguistic and symbolic systems) has the capacity to
re-present objective states of affairs in our thought processes and symbolic repre-
sentations. Thus, (c) what is true is what is a correct representation. Correct con-
ceptual representations are held to work best (or perhaps only) in tight logically
univocal concepts and in mathematics. In our area of concern - the visualization
of data sets - the good/true map is one with features that correctly (completely and
consistently) correspond to and re-present the topographical state-of-affairs. Simi-
larly, data sets (e.g., the location of power and utility lines, land valuation and tax
figures, zoning information, etc.) are true when they correspond correctly to the
physical or social phenomena they represent and also fit correct1y to the map it-
self. GIS then consists of a 'nested' series of representations that have their value
in being correct and manipulatable re-presentations of objective states of affairs.
But, reality is not so simple. Certainly this is not the place to 'refute' or 'amend'
the above assumptions. Here I can only assert that they are 'correct,' but incom-
plete and historicaIly-politicaIly constituted; that is, not straightforwardly anything
like the whole and entire truth. This alternative position seems weIl established by
current theoretical debates in the history of science, hermeneutics, and critical
theory, to which we can refer should we wish (see Lefebvre 1991, Mugerauer
322 R. Mugerauer

1991, D'Amico 1989, Gadamer 1989, McIntyre 1988, Heelan 1983, and Heideg-
ger 1977). Suffice it to say that 'facts' or 'data' are not self-selective or self-
validating; what becomes a fact or data-point or counts as 'information' does so
only within the context of a conceptual-practical system, which itself has a histori-
cal, cultural context of limitations and aspirations, insights and blindness, fears
and hopes. In short, what counts as information or even as a geographie feature is
a eoneeptual-pragmatie representation that results from diseernment, seleetion,
and suppression among alternatives within a historieal, eultural world system.
In addition, the lifeworld experience of places is primary and the conceptual
constitution and grasp of abstract space a secondary and derivative development.
As case studies in phenomenology, ethnology, and psychology demonstrate, in our
experience, places appear as heterogeneous (not homogeneous), as a function of
relationships to other people, places, and things (that is, relative, not absolute), and
with directional differences of up and down, back and front, right and left, all of
which are physiologically, psychologically, and symbolically charged (not iso-
tropiC).4 Thus, our lived geographical experiences display features exactly the
opposite of those attributed to space by the reigning conceptions of GIS. Since the
similarities and differences of places experienced among individuals, groups, and
entire cultures are among the chief sources of social cooperation and conflict, and
of the opportunities and obstacles that we seek to consider, it is not politically suf-
ficient or proper to operate from the limited conceptions of dominant positive sc i-
ence.

19.4 Alternative Geographies

That there are alternative geographies and alternative ways of visualizing spaces
and places is patently obvious. One wonderful advantage of GIS is that it presents
its diverse data visually. This is positive because, at some levels at least, those
who are not fluent with concepts or numbers can interact with visual information -
though social conventions are an enormous factor in sharing or mediating between
'creators' and 'users.' Further, cultural history shows that while some instruments
are highly directive or limiting to those who use and interpret them, there are
minimallimitations with simple drawing instruments (sticks scratching maps in
the sand or dirt; drawing on hide, bark, paper, and stone with pencils or powdered-
colored pigments; weaving various materials, or in the oral vers ions of mapping
that specify places and routes with song and story. As to the latter, Bruce Chatwin
(1987) nicely presents the Australian aboriginal tradition in which a physical-
spiritual world is mapped by stories and songs; Inuit and other native American

4 Within the large body ofwork in phenomenology and Gestalt psychology, of special note
is the work ofRudolf Amheim (1986), Thomas Thiis-Evensen (1984), and Maurice Mer-
leau-Ponty (1979).
 Qualitative GIS 323

traditions of oral and visual mapping are eovered in Bravo (1996), Rundstrom
(1995), Moodie (1994), Brody (1988, 1989), Turnbull (1989), Aberley and Lewis
(1998), W oodward and Lewis (1998), Walhus (1977), and Hisatake (1986).
Even a brief look at a variety of mappings makes clear that a range of eompel-
ling lifeworld geographies, rieh in understanding, interpretations, and information,
is brought forth by the designs and sayings/namings of many peoples where the
visual and verbal systems are artieulated in loeal or dialeetieal 'mother tongues'
(whieh eertainly are not the same as the systems ofthe univoeal eoneepts in West-
ern scienees, philosophy, and other diseursive formations). The variation in map-
ping beeomes obvious even in the simple set of figures provided in Figures 19.1-
19.5.

Figure 19.1. Standard Western cartographic representations: Mercator and Gnomic projec-
tions

Given the assumptions noted above that ground and drive GIS, it is elear how
the now-standardized forms of seientifie eartography provide the exemplars: they
are taken to be the correet representations of the objeetive state of affairs. From
this point ofview, the other modes ofmapping are interesting, perhaps, but 'ineor-
reet,' or 'deviant,' or representative of some other dimension (such as the makers'
dreams, feelings, impressions, limited pereeptions, ete.), but not of the objeetive
state ofthe world.
The assumptions diseussed here and the attitude toward the 'ineorreet' is nieely
put by Peter Gould and Rodney White (1980).5 Though they eertainly are deeent
and well-intended persons, as are the rest of my positivistie eolleagues, they ulti-
mately display, use, and promote the austere judgments of positive seienee. When
they examine 'the eorrelation between preferenees and aeeuraey of loeation' they

5 These authors, pioneers in perception and mental mapping research, are sensitive that
dass and economic resources make differences and they do describe the sociological un-
derstanding that comes from taking groups' perceptions as they are. Of course, their book
is innocent ofthe theoretical sophistications developed here.
324 R. Mugerauer

straightforwardly assume that the objective character of the terrain and correctness
of representation are what matter.

For our first, and to geographers, discouraging, plunge into spatial ignorance, we shall
examine the situation in North Dakota. University students were asked to record the
names of states on an outline map, and by recording the proportion of errors we can
draw contour lines enclosing areas of equal misidentification. (Gould and White 1980,
82-83)

..
,

~ _-"- ___
~" ,:,"""""",~
' '-'''''''' . . . .
. . . -A........

Figure 19.2. A standard city plan: Austin, Texas

 Qualitative GIS 325

Since they are scientific, they attempt to explain the cause of distortions and
'barriers to information flow' in terms commonly used in GIS and other informa-
tion-communication studies and policies. They work to show that the number of
transmissions (direcdy related to the number ofpeople) and the degree offamiliar-
ity (direcdy related to proximity to geographical features described) explain the
degree of accuracy or distortion of representations.

After we have taken the logarithms of information, population, and distance from [our
research areal, we can write: log information = -l.38 + 0.87 log population - 0.40 log
distance .... There is a very strong and significant relationship of information to both
these predictive variables. (1980, 93)

The quiet force behind what Gould and White say lies in its comprehensive
grasp of our increasingly global economic, legal, political, military, inteUectual,
and other institutions. Being able to present one's case in logical, linear terms, with
quantitative evidence, is essential if one is to obtain a grant, be hired or promoted
in the realms of research and technology, or convince a jury, city council, or gov-
emment agency to grant one's request. This is why, no matter what one's episte-
mological or political position, it is critical for those inside and outside the domi-
nant realm to learn standard GIS. Since the standard view is what exercises power
in the world today, and increasingly so, one has to be able to understand it and
participate in it oi become excluded from power of all sorts. To argue against the
importance of the reigning view conceming objectively arranged space and its
technologies, including GIS, would be poindess. Thus, a first conclusion: those
who have no access to GIS need to find a way to leam it, to acquire access to it, to
use it. But, this is a minimal consequence of our reflections, for it is pragmatically
harmful if one's lack of technology leads to being eliminated from the world, ei-
ther effectively or actually.

Figure 19.3. A medieval European T-O map

326 R. Mugerauer

Figure 194
. . ABI ac kfloot tiPI
.. cover, painted with war episo
. des
 Qualitative GIS 327

Figure 19.5. A map from Paulo Freire's pedagogical exercises. Reprinted by permission of
Continuum International Publishing Group from Education for Critical Consciousness.
Copyright 1973 by Paulo Freire.
328 R. Mugerauer

19.5 Obvious Issues

The problems with current GIS systems and their social uses form a relatively
simple cluster, no matter what one's personal political or intellectual position.
Since the dominant technological systems are grounded upon the post-renaissance,
post-enlightenment system of rational-mathematical science, understanding the
world depends, as Galileo already noted, on ability to do mathematics. Today,
alternate symbolic systems are becoming available in forms we call 'user friendly'
but which actually amount to translation of mathematical-Iogical codes into other
representational forms, typically iconographic. Thus, while the 'driver' does not
need to write code or understand the workings 'under the hood' she does need to
have 'dashboard knowledge.' That is, the user must be literate in and dexterous at
symbol distinctions, sequencing and other analytic-Iogical relations and opera-
tions, as weIl as in certain kinds of behavior routines.
Even setting aside the enormous pedagogical and political problems of how to
help others become computer and GIS literate, there remain several bitter realities
facing policy decisions. Given that there are many people who do not have access
to the dominant GIS technologies and worldviews, there is not agreement on what
to make of this fact. Currently, those with the information technologies live in a
world where those without it largely are ignored. Apparently, many GIS special-
ists are or should be concerned with finding solutions to these problems. Most of
us apparently believe in the value of inclusion of disenfranchised groups and in
cooperation with other world systems. But, we need to be critically aware of our
diverse motives and assumptions, lest we ourselves act imperialistically. Not sur-
prisingly, even the weIl-meaning formal directives behind the NCGIA Varenius
Project seem to consider the needs and possible remedies in terms of 'concepts'
that 'reconceptualize, measure, represent, monitor, and plan for the new emergent
geographies,6, thus almost inevitably casting the project in the very terms of the
dominant 'imperialistic' educational process. This is perverse since it is precisely
by their differences from the standard and dominant categories that the already
marginalized groups constitute their identity. In addition - though unavoidably -
these 'have-nots' (the learners) are required to consciously or unconsciously con-
form by internalizing and using the very 'normative' concepts, maps, and images
of the dominating groups (the teachers, fund-providers, and ultimately the 'host'
social-conceptual-technological systems or cultures), of which more shortly. In its
current form, it would appear that weIl-intended projects such as Varenius are
reconceptualizing the issue in the same rationalistic terms that will perpetuate the
inequality of accessibility opportunities, insofar as the latter have any substantial
economic or political force, or further obliterate local, differentiated groups' iden-
tities.

6 Cited from the NCGIA Varenius Project's 'Call For Participation'in 1998.
 Qualitative GIS 329

Further, we would need to be self-critical about our participation in the thought-

less confidence we likely have in the powers of communication and education.
Communicating information, in itself, may release pent-up psychological or social
pressures, but does not constitute or substitute for rationalized collective action
(Blackbum 1989, Mazzioti 1984). Then, there is the undeniable fact that since
knowledge and technology are forms of power, many factions in the world would
prefer to exclude groups (so they remain powerless and unthreatening, or so that
they constitute a larger unskilled group for the mining of relevant ores and ele-
ments or for the cleaning of toxic by-products of the industrial processes of high-
technology).
In addition, there are two further dangers so serious, I believe, as to merit special
attention. One is aversion of the just-discussed exclusion. We have to deal with
the fact that a great deal of the current interest in spreading access to information
technologies sterns from desires to exploit those without (or those who fund the
fundless 'consumers-to-be'). The reasons are many: selling hardware and software
and services to under-participating groups results in enormous profits and expand-
ing professional job opportunities, banking of political good will, or power via
image enhancement. Without denying the good that has come about within or
from traditionally disenfranchised groups, we can not ignore the evidence that too
much is solicited and sold largely for the sake of profit; too much is 'done unto
others' by technical experts (even if well meaning or 'harmless and politically
neutral'). What is the actual, positive accomplishment, in terms that matter to
them, of GIS becoming available to the disadvantaged poor, homeless, veterans,
mi grant farm workers, and others? Does it allow them to do something they genu-
inely need or want, to become personally transformed to embody their own poten-
tial rather than the 'plans' of someone else? There is evidence that the Emperor of
GIS often has no clothes (Forsher 1998).
We need more research and better policies conceming those on whose behalfwe
speak - a problem in itself--insofar as they are deemed important in our culture
only, or largely, because they constitute the next market group to be exploited as
consumers, whether they benefit from the newly installed equipment or not. We
need a fuller understanding and appropriate measures of what would matter in
their own terms and value systems to those without technology, to those with dif-
ferent worldviews and geographies.
Second, no matter that some of those in power seek cooperation and inclusion
while others exploit and exclude, we cannot assurne that the 'others' are indiffer-
ent or passive in these charged global issues. On the contrary, in addition to being
pressed by those who 'want in', our dominant political-intellectual-cultural world-
view or system already is under attack by groups who not only do not share our
worldview, but who do not want to. They who actively want to defeat its spread
across the world or even roll back its current influence. There is every reason to
believe that the attacks will continue.
At the same time, it is reasonable to believe that confrontation is not necessary in
every case. Sometimes conflict is preventable among people of good will, and we
can better leam to interact positively with others. It is an essential part of special-
330 R. Mugerauer

ist groups' deliberations and consequent actions to jigure out how to cooperate
with those who would affirm their own distinctive worldviews and geographical
information systems; that iso with those who do not want to lose their own identi-
ties and ways of life just because they might have the opportunity to obtain access
to ours.

19.6 Toward a Solution: Pluralistic-Democratic GIS

for Mediating Individuals and Groups

The proposed partial solution to many of the problems outlined above aims at an
affirmation of the identities and differences among individuals and groups within
the context of a shared set of worlds. This would be the contemporary, informa-
tion-age version of e pluribus Unum. Without the 'one,' we have chaos - anarchy,
if not war; without the 'many,' we have totalitarianism.
The outcome envisioned here is intended to be simple and realistic. It is simple
in that, opposite to a monoculture, which seems to spell doom to human social
groups just as surely as to soi! and crops, it envisions living in a multiply-cultured,
non-isolated, set of worlds whi!e maintaining several, possibly changing, identi-
ties. The vision is realistic in that it has operated across time and space for thou-
sands of years. Very few people actually have been or have remained members of
absolutely undifferentiated monocultures. Even within small primal groups there
are multiple sub-cultures: men's and women's groups, earth and sky groups, mon-
key and snake people, children and post-initiates, gatherers, warriors, and shamans
in dynamic relationships. Even among the earliest and most c10sed groups there
are those who operate at the borders, leaming and using the languages and mate-
rial items of neighbors. The ancient trade of colored stones and weapons worked
because groups with strong focal identities nonetheless had ways to interact with
others who, in effect, lived in different worlds. The same phenomenon continues
with the millions of migrants in today's world. Think of the worldwide phenome-
non of children of immigrants mediating between the 'old world' culture of the
transplanted grandparents and the host culture ofthe streets.
Transculturation does work. How? Note, here I am not talking about replacing
one culture with another; whether freely chosen or forced. That phenomenon has
to do with the operations of monoculturation. I mean the process whereby one
maintains one's own initial cultural world and comes to participate in another, or
several others, which also become one's own, while remaining able to pass back to
inhabit, even to deepen, one's original 'horne.' Again, most ofus do this regularly,
as would be apparent if we discussed our own lives as sons and daughters and
parents, as Irish-American researchers studying Chilean economics, as academics
who also repair and race motorcyc1es, and so on.
The process of which we are speaking is one of mediation, where some people
open to each other, help each other to cross over and back, between cultures. This
 Qualitative GIS 331

mediation is a trans-lation, which literally means a going over, across; a bridging.

The persons with technical GIS expertise obviously have to be translators: they
have to hear and understand what is being said to them about a world they do not
genuinely inhabit and then try to help translate that into some kind of GIS presen-
tation. But, first and foremost, those who articulate their own world do the trans-
lating, because they have to bring out of themselves the 'design' of their world
and then name and reflect on the subtle, normally assumed and unspoken relation-
ships among its elements. They have to go over across to the foreign, unavoidably
falsifying, and dangerous formats of GIS, and then try to come back again, to their
own worlds.
In addition to the question of whether and how GIS systems might be - or be-
come - adequate to such a bridging, there is the more fundamental question of
whether and how the different sets of people involved would be able to undertake
and succeed at such a task. There is some reason to be hopeful if we consider the
already developed and partially implemented theory and practices in planning and
communication that are known as 'pluralism and advocacy' and 'critical theory,'
which may be updated and newly implemented via GIS. As Davidoff and Reiner
successfuHy argued, those with expertise must help those in need to articulate their
own goals and visions, to translate and evaluate these into their own terms and
into the coin of the current regime, and then to make their own decisions and, with
the help of the expert, present their cases in terms of the group in power (Davi-
doff, 1965; Davidbff and Reiner, 1962). This does, I believe, need to be made less
politically optimistic (or naive) by moving it in the direction of critical theory. As
Habermas (1984, 1987), Forester (1980, 1982), Albrecht and Lim (1986), and oth-
ers point out, the legitimacy of institutions as weH as educational and political
projects depend on the satisfaction of more complex criteria. There has been con-
siderable work to show that there are at least four necessary and sufficient condi-
tions to be met before an action can be considered legitimate: clarity, veracity,
trust, and consent or validation by the groups affected.
How can we somehow deal nonarbitrarily with others in a way that results in
genuine common understanding and a shared world, and that does not destroy
actual and fruitful differences in the name of the unbearable sameness of forced
monoculture? How can we be self-disciplined so as to respect others and thus
ultimately enjoy their differences in our lives? How can we leam the non-
intrusiveness and non-imposition that are crucial to understanding and practice?
Boundaries need to be acknowledged and respected. By letting the boundaries be,
we mark differences, but are not separated by them. In pursuing personally impor-
tant issues, we become able to pass over to other's concems. We also necessarily
pass back again, because (despite the claims of objectivist methodologies) we can
not 'become' the other. By passing back again, we affirm our own and the other's
identity.
Brazilian Educator Paulo Freire, through his life's work and his famous books,
such as Education for Critical Consciousness (1968) and Pedagogy of the Op-
pressed (1973), argues that aH of us, including educators, face the constant and
grave danger of being tyrannical and imperial (cf., Putnam 1978, Collins 1977,
332 R. Mugerauer

Lankshear, Paters, and Knobel 1996). To teach the corpus of knowledge and pro-
cedure that is the heart of any tradition, we need to teach students by way of stan-
dard, proven concepts, and methods. The very power and applicability of these
concepts and methods ensures that they can be understood by everyone and passed
on. Thus, in the rational, scientific world, Newton's concept of mass, Marx's con-
cept of contradiction, or Rawles' concept of justice are univocal and precise. But,
as noted above, this means that to educate our students we impose these concepts
and practices upon them, consequently also forcing their experiences and actions,
that is their worlds, into preexisting, standard concepts, which, after all, are not
politically innocent.
The same is true of allleamers' problems. The learner wants to know how to use
GIS. To proceed with our expertise, which presumably is why we are valuable and
have been brought onto the scene, we translate the learner's vague needs and gen-
eral wants into precise terms. We supply or develop, and then apply, instruments
that will give exact and irrefutable results and indications for practical procedures.
We develop lesson plans that will be maximally functional, that fit with the corre-
late needs of the group and within the prescribed social-economic, aesthetic
norms.
In these cases we exercise our power and accomplish things in the world pre-
cisely insofar as we get the learners to participate in and, thus, continue the preex-
isting and dominant system. To some extent this is good and unavoidable: learners
want and need to leam GIS to become part of the powerful, dominating world.
But, at the same time the result is oppressive to them and ensnares them in a cycle
that continues the processes of oppression (with them now appropriated to con-
tinue what they have intemalized). We know that we also need ways to respond to
the worlds of individuals and groups so that what we come to understand and do
together is generated out of the existential reality of these life-worlds. We are re-
sponsible for not stamping out their specific ways of being in the name of profit-
able and expedient homogeneity. We are responsible for developing ways to see,
attune ourselves to, and nurture the life-worlds of others, including those who
place themselves or are placed in the trajectory of our influence.
Freire agues that the primary way to do this is by disciplining ourselves so that
we can listen to what others have to say and by changing our professional mission
to helping others to say what they want to say in their own terms. In Freire's view,
this means starting with the admission that we do not know what the other per-
son's world is like, nor what their real problems and needs are, much less what
acceptable solutions would be. Nor, likely, does the other person. Ifthey did, they
would not need or consult uso The vibrant relation between learner and teacher is
generated insofar as teachers can help learners to name and become conscious of
their worlds, their needs and possibilities. The process of helping learners to ar-
ticulate their worlds in their own terms is a process of liberation and empower-
ment, for them and for the experts too.
Freire's approach integrates educational, political, and social theory with per-
sonal experience. He contends that the freeing transformation of praxis is achieved
through dialogue in a process (in his words, conscientizacao - conscientization)
 Qualitative GIS 333

that allows us to critically assess and und erstand society and our situation in it.
The process begins with investigations that uncover what Freire calls generative
themes, that is, the controlling postulates that are existentially and emotionally
powerful to a group. These themes are then presented back to the group through a
series of often-pictorial codifications in which the teacher elicits distinctions such
as those between cultural and natural dimensions or relationships among inside
and outside groups contending for power.
In this format, where problems are raised for people to discuss in their own
terms, contradictions naturally are discovered; in turn, these can be codified and
presented for further reflection. Thus, the educator can pose a problem to the
group; through dialogue the group begins to surmount the initiallimitations of the
situation. Obviously, the only way for the project to work successfully is for the
participants to engage in genuine dialogue together, for intensive and long periods
of time. Together, and scrupulously avoiding thoughtlessly accepted concepts,
what matters has to be allowed to be named and thought in its own terms, that is,
in terms of the character of each thing and the webs of relationships among them.
In the process, the learners can discover for themselves the contradictions among
elements and systems of meaning, intent, and practice. They can begin to explore
how the contradictions might be overcome in ways that allow the maximum nur-
ture of their world as it discloses itself to them.
To have a more concrete sense of what this means, think of the fieldwork in-
volved in understanding a given geographical realm. We know that it is easy to do
research in the relevant literature, draw out the necessary concepts, devise a hy-
pothesis, and formulate a questionnaire. After a pilot project or two, we are ready
to go, to translate the not-yet-known into the known. But we also all know how we
falsif}r the worlds we are studying when we do so--at least by leaving out so much,
and I would agree with Freire, by violently translating everything into foreign,
standard categories. To remedy this, it is increasingly common to try to go open-
mindedly and see what is there. Then, from initial field observations and conversa-
tions, we devise open-ended interviews, and if that information is not precise
enough, formulate questionnaires. But, these procedures have to do with us com-
ing to know their world. Freire's point is that the opposite needs to happen: the
others need to articulate-delineate their own world, in their own terms. Thus,
though we can assist in the process with our expertise and technologies, our first
obligation is to facilitate visualization and dialogue among the participants, who
thereby articulate their world for themselves and us, as they explain it to uso
Comparative theologian lohn S. Dunne develops a very useful strategy that may
help us to 'pass over' from ourselves to others, and then to pass back (1967).
Dunne begins his reflections with a personal search for what so me take to be the
issues that matter most. 'How can I deal with my fear of my death?' 'Is there a
God?' 'Am I all alone in facing life's difficulties?' These timeless questions have
been encountered by many over the past centuries, but still are mine right now, to
be answered by me, unavoidably. Though each of us has to answer such questions
for ourselves, since others have asked these questions before us (and perhaps even
found 'answers' or at least comforting resting places along the way), Dunne ex-
plores our issue of personal and shared understanding.
334 R. Mugerauer

He argues that in pursuing personally important issues, we become able to pass

over to other people's concems. We necessarily also pass back again, because we
cannot ever become the other. By passing back to our lives again, we affirm both
our own and the other's identity. By passing over and back, based on shared strug-
gles with the same genuine questions and realities (such as death and loneliness),
our personal questions

. . . can be broadened and followed in a much wider context than they ordinarily
would be. The passing over and back, then, tends to bridge the gap between private
knowledge and public knowledge and to give the seeking and finding that occurs on a
strictly individual level something of the communicability of public knowledge.
[Comparing one's personal questions and findings with those of others allows us to be]
... able to pass from the standpoint of our lives to those of others, to enter into a sym-
pathetic understanding of them, to find resonances between their lives and our own,
and to come back once again, enriched, to our own standpoint. (Dunne 1967, viii-ix)

That such a process is reasonable theoretically and practically could be further

established if we had the opportunity by referring to the non-ideologie al work of
other diverse figures, such as Gadamer (1989), Mclntyre (1988), and Heidegger
(1966). Gadamer, for example, demonstrates how fusion of differing cultural-
temporal horizons may happen when we encounter a 'text' with a genuine ques-
tion. Our pressing concem may evoke new meanings, perhaps unintended by the
original author, from the work which we address seeking insight. Heidegger and
Mclntyre account for parallel phenomena of mediation as trans-lation.

19.7 GIS Applications for Empowerment

GIS admirably suits itself to such a process. It can provide the means to graphi-
cally present the mapping of one's own world in most whatever way one wishes.
(Remember that built into the very code systems and protocols there are deeper,
fixed limitations that ultimately need to be overcome or removed.) What matters
in a mapping, what is included and excluded (such as the relations among ele-
ments, the means and forms of graphie presentations) would be worked out in
each original application of a system to a newly delineated and articulated world.
Importantly, the decisions that stern openly and responsibly from implicit and
explicit value systems can be respected and built-in from the start. What was not
self-consciously used can come to group consciousness so that its future impor-
tance may be decided. And, since learners would have to visualize-articulate their
own world in their own way and then format that into GIS, they would start with
their own world, pass over into the dominant one, and then back into their own
(now bi-cultural realrn). The teacher would begin in the dominant technological
world of GIS (at least for purposes of the technical facilitation, but not necessar-
 Qualitative GIS 335

ily), pass over, at least a bit, in dialogue and work to the world ofthe learners, and
then pass back into her own.
Theoretically and practically, we are justified in holding that 'there is no abso-
lute standpoint, since no standpoint would exhaust the truth of human culture and
built reality, though there is the possibility of our passing over from one contex-
tual horizon to another' (Dunne 1967, 5). Parallel with this, there is no purely rela-
tive standpoint, since though humans operate within specific traditions, disci-
plines, and cultural contexts, one's deep questions, patterns of thought and action,
and way of life do connect with those in other traditions, disciplines, cultures, and
times.
Boundaries need to be acknowledged and respected. By letting boundaries be,
we mark or even celebrate the differences, but are not isolated by them. Crossing
boundaries, then, is not a matter of scientific method achieving objectified knowl-
edge; nor is it idiosyncratic voyeurism. Crossing over and back is possible be-
cause we face not the problem of the unintelligibility of the other, but the inex-
haustible intelligibility of other people, practices, processes, GIS, and other
information technology projects yet to come.
In contrast to the positivistic mental mapping procedures of the dominant GIS
paradigm (recall the quotation above from Gould and White), examples of self-
articulation exist that can be amplified. On the one hand, there are the many grass
roots electronic communities that could implement GIS in the same spirit in which
they now do operate electronically. We all have our favorite community Web
sites. 7 Groups of specialists and ordinary users alike need to collate and share
sources so that we all can Jeam from the entire set whose productions we value.
In addition, to focus on the basic operation of mapping, it would be interesting
and fruitful to transfer to GIS the grass-roots mapping processes underway around
the world, such as documented in Boundaries of Home: Mapping for Loeal Em-
powerment by Doug Aberley et al. (1993). In contrast to the criteria of good = true
= correct in positive science, Aberley contends that

It is important to repeat over and over that there is no 'good' mapping or 'bad' mapping.
Leave the need for perfection to the scientists; what you are being encouraged to do is
honestly dcscribe what you already know about where you live in a manner that adds
momentum to positive forces of change .... every region has the potential to be repre-
sented by as many unique interpretations as it has citizens. Reinhabitants will not only
1eam to put maps on paper, maps will also be sung, chanted, stitched and woven, told
in stories, and danced across fire-lit skies. (1993, 5)

A moderate and seemingly unproblematic application would involve using exist-

ing, standard, and GIS base mappings to which personalized, or local, or biore-

7 Among my favourites are Austin Free-Net <http://www.austinfree.net> and the Commu-

nity and Civic Network Discussion list <COMMUNET@LIST.UVM.EDU> archived at
<http://list.uvm.edu/arch/archives/ communet.html>.
336 R. Mugerauer

gional information would be added. 8 This is related to my own work with Barbara
Parmenter and an interdisciplinary team of graduate students to generate a Quali-
tative GIS for a neighborhood planning project outside Austin, Texas. The resi-
dents in the Spicewood Corridor, off the Old Spieewoods Springs Road west of
the city, are seeking a way to explore their own identity and that of their local
place in order to begin to imagine ways to develop and keep safe the qualitatively
distinctive environment in which they have chosen to live. This is a still-emerging
version of a conservative Qualitative GIS, in which we are encoding information
about the experiences of the natural environment and personalized individual and
group information onto the standardized GIS databases. 9
A more difficult and yet promising project would be to use basic GIS formats to
generate customized combinations of not-necessarily-representational 'designs'
and 'words' to originarily let a worldview emerge and be named in its own terms.
There is no reason at all why a combination of Freire's proven pedagogy that com-
bines visual representation and naming-dialogue in local, dialectical words cannot
be transformed into visualization that presents other quantitative information and
qualitative interpretations in a democratic, pluralistic GIS system.

References
Aberley, D., et al. 1993. Boundaries 01 Horne: Mapping lor Local Empowerment. Gabriola
Island BC. and Philadelphia PA: New Society Publishers.
Aberley, D. and Lewis, G.M. 1998. Cartographic Encounters: Perspectives on Native
American Mapmaking and Map Use. Chicago: University ofChicago Press.
Albrecht, J. and Lim, G-C. 1986. A search for alternative planning theory: Use of critical
theory. Journal 01Architecture-Planning Research 3: 117-3l.
Amheim,. 1986. Dynamics 0/ Architectural Form. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
Blackburn, R. 1989. Defending the myths: The ideology of bourgeois social science. In
Cockburn, A. and Blackburn, R. (eds.) A BrielGuide to Bourgeois Ideology in Student
Power. New Left Review, 154-69.
Bravo, M.T. 1996. The accuracy of ethnoscience: A study ofInuit cartography and cross-
cultural commensurability. Manchester Papers in Social Anthropology, no. 2. Manches-
ter: Department ofSocial Anthropology, University ofManchester, 1-36.
Brody, H. 1988. Maps and Dreams. Vancouver: Douglas and Mclntyre.
Brody, H. 1989. Maps and journeys. In Macleod, F. (ed.) Togail Tir Marking Time: The
Map olthe Western Isles. Stornoway, Scotland: Aeair Ud. and Lanntair Gallery, 133-36
Castells, M., Mollenkkopf, R., and Robson, M. 1998. The Rise of the Network Society.
Paper presented at Telecommunications and the City Conference, University of Georgia
(March).
Chatwin, B. 1987. The Songlines. New York: Penguin.
Collins, D. 1977. Paulo Freire: His Life, Works, and Thought. New York: Paulist Press.

8 Doug Aberley, Beatrice Briggs, Kai Snyder, Jonathan Doig, and George Tukel supply
examples of successful case studies and techniques.
9 The Web site for this project is <http://mather.ar.utexas.edu/students/cadlab/spicewood/>
(For information on the Spicewoods Springs Road Project: drbob@mail.utexas.edu).
 Qualitative GIS 337

D'Amico, R. 1989. Historicism and Knowledge. New York: Routledge.

Davidoff, P. and Reiner, T.A. 1962. A choice theory ofplanning. Journal ofthe American
Institute ofPlanners 28(May):11-39.
Davidoff, P. 1965. Advocacy and pluralism in planning. Journal ofthe American Institute
of Planners 3 1(November):277-96.
Dunne, J.S. 1967. A Search for God in Time and Memory. New York: Macmillan Com-
pany.
Feenberg, A. and Hannay, A. 1995. Technology and the Politics of Knowledge. Blooming-
ton: Indiana University Press.
Forester, J. 1980. Critical theory and planning practice. Journal of the American Planning
Association 46:(July) 91-112.
Forester, J. 1982. Planning in the face ofpower. APA Journal Winter: 67-80.
Forsher, J. 1998. Access and excIusion in the age of information and communication tech-
nology. Paper presented at Telecommunications and the City Conference, University of
Georgia (March).
Freire, P. 1968. Pedagogy of (he Oppressed. New York: Seabury Press.
Freire, P. 1973. Educationfor Critical Consciousness. New York: Seabury Press.
Gadamer, H-G. 1989. Truth and Method. New York: Continuum.
Gould, P. and White, R. 1980. Mental Mapping. London: Little, Unwin.
Habermas, J. 1984, 1987. Theory ofCommunicative Action. Boston: Beacon.
Heelan P. 1983. Space Perception and the Philosophy ofScience. Berkeley: University of
Califomia Press.
Heidegger, M. 1966. Discourse on Thinking. New York: Harper & Row.
Heidegger, M.1977. The Question Concerning Technology. New York: Harper & Row
Hisatake, T. 1986. Indigenous maps, cosmology, and spatial recognition of the North
American Indians: With special reference to the Ojibway around Lake Superior, In No-
zawa, Hideki (ed.) Cosmology, Epistemology, and the History ofGeography: Japanese
Contributions to the History of Geography. Fukuoka: Institute of Geography, Kyushu
University,3:1-25.
Investor's Business Daily. 1998. Does U.S. face a 'Digital Divide'?, August 14:BI-2.
Lankshear, C., Paters, M., and Knobel, M. 1996. Critical pedagogy and cyberspace. In
Giroux, H.A., et al. Counternarratives: Cultural Studies and Critical Pedagogies in
Postmodern Spaces. New York: Routledge, 149-88.
Lefebvre, H. 1991. The Production ofSpace. New York: Blackwell.
Loader, B. (ed.) 1998. Cyberspace Divide: Equality, Agency and Policy. New York: Rout-
ledge.
MacIntyre, A. Whose Justice? Which Rationality? Notre Dame: University ofNotre Dame
Press.
Mazzioti, D.F. 1974. The underlying assumptions of advocacy planning: pluralism and
reform. Journal ofthe American Institute of Planners 40(1 ):207-25.
Merleau-Ponty, M. 1979. Phenomenology of Perception. Atlantic Highlands, NJ: Humani-
ties Press.
Moodie D.W. 1994. The role of the Indian in the European exploration and mapping of
Canada. Zeitschrift der Gesellschaftfur Kanada-Studien 14(2):79-94.
Mugerauer, R. 1991. Post-structuralist planning theory. Austin: University ofTexas Gradu-
ate Pro gram in Community and Regional Planning Working Papers.
338 R. Mugerauer

Mugerauer, R. 1995. Environmental Interpretations: Tradition, Deconstruction, Hermeneu-

tics. Austin: University ofTexas Press.
NTIA (National Telecommunications and Information Administration). 1997. Falling
Through the Net 11: New Data on the Digital Divide, A Survey ofbiformation 'Haves' and
'Have Nots' in 1997. See <http://www.ntia.doc.gov/ntiahomelnet2/falling.html>.
Putnam, C. 1978. Adult Literacy Education: Paulo Freire's Ideas and a Program for the
United States. Unpublished manuscript, Ann Arbor: University ofMichigan.
Rundstrom, R.A. 1995. GIS, Indigenous peoples, and epistemological diversity. Cartogra-
phy and Geographical Iriformation Systems 22(1):63-75.
Sanyal, R. 1996. Report of a colloquium held at department of urban planning, Cambridge:
MIT.
Schiller, H.I. 1996. Information Technology: The Deepening Sodal Crisis in America.
Thiis-Evensen, T. 1984. Archetypes in Architecture. Oslo: Norwegian University Press.
Turnbull, D. 1989. Maps Are Territories: Sdence is an Atlas. Geelong, Victoria, Australia:
Deakin University.
Varenius, B. 1650. Geographia Generalis. Amsterdam: Apud Ludovicum Elzervirium.
Warhus, M. 1977. Another America: Native American Maps and the History ofOur Land.
New York: St. Martin's Press.
Woodward, D. and Lewis, G.M. (eds.) 1998. Cartography in the Traditional African,
American, Arctic, Australian, and Pacific Societies, vol. 2, bk. 3 of The History ofCar-
tography. Chicago: University ofChicago Press.
 Part IV

Conclusion
20 From Sustainable Transportation to
Sustainable Accessibility: Can We Avoid a
New Tragedy ofthe Commons?

Helen Couclelis
Department of Geography, University of California, Santa Barbara CA 93106-4060, USA.
Email: cook@geog.ucsb.edu

20.1 Introduction

Accessibility is the geographie definition of opportunity. The opportunity indi-

viduals have to participate in necessary or desired activities, or to explore new
ones, is contingent upon their ability to reach the right places at the appropriate
times and with reasonable expenditure of resources and effort. Up until recently
the history of the increase in accessibility at local, regional, and global scales has
largely been the history of improvements in transportation. With the advent,
spread, and now merging of telecommunications and digital information technolo-
gies there exist for the first time viable and often preferable alternatives to physi-
cal movement for accessing and engaging in economic, social, or cultural
activities. These developments combine with advances in the design and manage-
ment of physical transportation to create substantially altered forms of accessibil-
ity landscapes reflecting profound changes in the meaning of that term itself and
its implications for urban and regional structure and function.
In the geographie literature accessibility has been studied mostly as a property
of individual locations or as a locational requirement of individuals or groups. A
location (such as the traditional city center) is accessible if it is easily reachable
from most other locations. Conversely, accessibility is a critical consideration for
people who typically require access to jobs, services and other activities and op-
portunities. In both these cases there is a clear spatial (and eventually also tempo-
ral) distinction between an origin, where the need for a contact originates, and a
destination, where that need is satisfied, the two being separated by a physical
(spatial or spatio-temporal) distance. Accessibility then is a question of how easy
(fast, cheap, comfortable ... ) it may be for that distance to be overcome, and the
answer has traditionally been sought in the availability and quality of transporta-
tion.
The societal changes described by the term 'the information age' modity this
picture in at least two respects. First is the widely advertised substitution of tele-
communications contact for physical movement. This is indeed happening locally,
regionally and globally at an accelerating pace and if things were to end there we
would be enjoying by default the age of sustainable transportation. That this is not
342 H. Couclelis

the case is due to the fact that profound reorganizations of activity patterns are
taking place at aB scales such that the net number of interactions that involve
physical movement rather than electronic contact appears to be increasing rather
than decreasing. As this paper argues, a large part of this phenomenon is due to
the fragmentation 0/ activity that is taking place such that activities that used to be
associated with a single location (e.g., my workplace) are now increasingly scat-
tered among geographically distant locations (e.g., my office, horne, associate's
horne, hotel room, car, train, or plane). Thus the contact set of individuals, the
number of places they interact with, explodes from one location per activity to a
potentially indefinite number of locations. While many of the corresponding inter-
actions are carried out in virtual space, many others are very much physical, plac-
ing old-fashioned demands on transportation systems to meet old-fashioned
accessibility needs.
With more people traveling more often than ever before, sustainable transporta-
tion is emerging as a major theme in contemporary transportation research. The
notion of sustainable transportation is closely associated with mobility, accessibil-
ity, urban form and function, environmental quality, and social and economic life.
Of these, accessibility may be seen as the most central concept, linking the others
together. Hodge (1995) argues that the recent shift in emphasis from mobility to
accessibility in transportation research may not be quite enough to ensure sustain-
ability. The reason is that in the information age the demand for contacts in gen-
eral and especially of the physical kind may be increasing faster than is necessary
for a weil functioning economy, society, and culture: striving to meet without fur-
ther ado the associated proliferating accessibility demands may not be in the best
long-term interest of our cities, the environment, or society. Thus we may speak of
'sustainable accessibility' as the goal of meeting reasonable mobility and accessi-
bility requirements of individuals while reducing the need for ever larger contact
sets now and in the future.
This paper argues that sustainable accessibility is a precondition for sustainable
transportation, and explores the meaning of that phrase within the context of rap-
idly spreading information and communication technologies (ICTs ). It begins by
highlighting the complexity of the notion of accessibility and its relation with dif-
ferent views of transportation technology. It then discusses how accessibility may
be redefined in the information age, in pace with other momentous changes in how
places, activities, and spatial relations are being conceptualized within a new hy-
brid space-time that is partly traditionally geographic, partly virtual. Central to
these changes is the fragmentation of activity brought about by ICTs. That obser-
vation leads to an exploration of the notion of sustainable accessibility within the
framework of the 'tragedy of the commons' dilemma. The paper closes with a
brief discussion of some of the many research challenges, both theoretical and
practical, lying ahead in this brave new domain.
 From Sustainable Transportation to Sustainable Accessibility 343

20.2 Transportation, leTs, and the Fragmentation of Activity

Accessibility and Transportation: Multiple Perspectives

Though central to transportation and spatial interaction research, accessibility is a

notoriously difficult concept to pin down. Scott (See Chapter 3) provides a com-
prehensive review of how accessibility has been variously defined and treated in
the literature; this discussion will not be repeated here. Instead, I propose in this
section an informal typology of perspectives on the concept, useful for c\arifying
the connections with transportation (and beyond, with ICTs). What is highlighted
here above all is the complexity of the notion of accessibility, the impossibility to
pigeonhole it within some well-defined domain. In a similar spirit, Occelli (see
Chapter 17, p. 280) speaks about the 'junction' function of accessibility:
Accessibility is difficult to translate into a single meaningful notion ... [it] shares fea-
tures of the two fundamental components of any spatial system: the spatio-temporal
pattern of activities, and the spatio-functional pattern of interdependencies. In bridging
these two components, the concept of accessibility provides a 'junction' between them.
There is at least one other aspect to the 'junction' function of accessibility, be-
yond the spatio-temporal and functional. That is the urban economics perspective,
with its distinctive treatment of accessibility as a good. In addition, there is a scale
issue: one can talk about accessibility with respect to a place, or an individual, or
an urban or regional system as a whole. These observations suggest the following
scheme, based on these three distinct perspectives on accessibility (spatio-
temporal, functional, and economic), and the three views of place, individual, and
system (Table 20.1). There are arguably several more perspectives on accessibility
(social, cultural, affective, cognitive, etc.) but these will not be considered here.

Table 20.1. Diverse views and perspectives on accessibility

Spatial (spatiotemporal) Functional perspective
perspective
Place attribute Enabling attribute of
locations
Individual Behavioral explanatory Determinant of space- Resource for
(micro) principle time activity patterns individuals and
groups
System Aggregate spatial prop- Structural efficiency Positive exter-
(macro) erty of urban areas measure of urban areas nality

Thus, from the spatio-temporal perspective, accessibility is a situational attribute

of places, an explanatory principle of individual spatial behavior, or an aggregate
property of spatially compact or central urban areas and regions. From a func-
tional perspective, accessibility is what makes locations more suitable for some
land uses rather than others; at the micro-scale it is a major determinant of the
344 H. Couclelis

space-time activity patterns of individuals, and a measure of the structural effi-

ciency of urban areas and regions at the macro-scale. Finally, from an economics
perspective, accessibility governs land values in the urban land market: it is a
market good that can be bought and sold (an exchange value). For individuals and
groups by contrast it is a use value, a resource that makes life and work easier and
more productive, while at the macro level of the system as a whole it is a positive
externality, a public good arising from the myriad of micro-Ievel arrangements
and decisions making up an urban area (Papageorgiou 1987).
The close affinity between accessibility and transportation is reflected in Table
20.2, which exactly paralleIs Table 20.1 in structure. Table 20.2 summarizes the
roles of transportation technologies from the spatio-temporal, functional, and eco-
nomic perspectives, and from the distinct views of place, the individual or group,
and the urban or regional system as a whole. It looks so similar to Table 20.1 as to
appear almost redundant, and yet there are some critical differences. For example,
at the system level, while accessibility is always a positive externality, transporta-
tion is fully capable of generating negative externalities in the form of congestion,
pollution, accidents and the other well-known banes of an excessively mobility-
oriented society. Similarly the land-use-allocating function of transportation often
ends up producing reduced overall accessibility, as when horne and work are
pushed so far apart as to add millions of wasteful commuting miles to already
overburdened networks. Thus, while the relationship between accessibility and
transportation appears to be linear at the micro level, this is not necessarily the
case at the system level, where accessibility and transportation can sometimes be
at odds.

Table 20.2. Views and perspectives on transportation

Spatio-temporal Functional Economics
perspective perspective perspective
Place Place-bridging Interaction- Land-value-
generating enhancing
Individual Mobility-generating, time- Activity-enabling Utility-producing
(micro) saving
System (macro) Space-time distorting Land-use- Extemality-
structuring generating

The Death of Distance, the Explosion of Place?

There is mounting evidence that aspects of these traditional relationships between

accessibility and transportation are changing rapidly within the context of the pro-
found socio-economic, institutional, technological and cultural changes variously
designated as the information age, the global age, the post-modern, the post-
industrial, or the network society (Castells 1996). The emerging new geographies
that accompany these broader transformations range from the continental scale
where marked metropolitan and regional restructuring is taking place (Office of
Technology Assessment 1995, Graham and Marvin 1996), to the intimate scale of
 From Sustainable Transportation to Sustainable Accessibility 345

changing individual lifestyles and their spatial consequences. Undoubtedly the

defining technologies of the age are the information and communication technolo-
gies. For those who are part of the information society, the technical ease of re-
mote communication and information transfer and the virtual annihilation of the
marginal contact cost has led to an explosion of the size of the contact sets of indi-
viduals and firms, and to the much ballyhooed 'death of distance' (Cairncross
1997). 'Darling, the telecoms revolution is finally happening' says the woman on
the telephone. And the banner at the top of the cartoon reads: 'Suddenly ... dis-
tance no longer mattered'. Every geographer should have that cover of the
Economist (30 September 1995) posted on her wall as it summarizes the major
theoretical challenge geography as a spatial discipline has to face at the turn of the
millennium. Although news of the demise of distance may be premature, unques-
tionably its role in structuring spatial interaction is increasingly a different one
from what traditional geographical thinking had assumed (Couclelis 1996a,
Johnston 1997). Considering that all definitions and measures of accessibility in-
volve some notion of distance, one wonders what happens to accessibility in a
world where many critical distances appear to vanish.
It is indeed reasonable to expect that the spread of JCTs in urban regions will
result in profoundly altered, hybrid physical-virtual accessibility landscapes re-
quiring a new conceptual vocabulary for their description. Not only distance but
also place, another fundamental concept in geography that is closely connected
with traditional definitions of accessibility (see Table 20.1), appears to be under-
going a momentous shift (Curry and Eagles 1999). Adams (1998) reviews the
changing understanding of the concept from the standpoint of social theory and
structuration theory, noting that we are witnessing 'a serious ontological challenge
to geography' (p. 89). Thus place has been variously described as a 'dynamic sys-
tem of connections', as 'process', as 'defined by the communication acts that
structure both personal activities and collective social processes' , as an 'inter-
weaving of communication and action', (Adams 1998, 94), and as 'network'
(Bolton 1997). Underlying all of these definitions is a negation of the traditional
cartographic representation of place as a point or contiguous zone in Euclidean 2-d
space. What this may mean for the notion of distance between places, and hence
for accessibility, is anybody's guess.
It is in the context of these conceptual shifts, grounded in the wide-ranging em-
pirical transformations taking place around us, that we need to consider one of the
major paradoxes of the information age: that there is at the same time an increas-
ing substitution of telecontact for travei, and an increasing demand for travei.
While the former is a natural consequence of the spread of ICTs, the increased
travel demand observable at all sc ales is counter-intuitive (Bureau of Transporta-
tion Statistics 1997). The phenomenon is undoubtedly due to multiple and com-
plex reasons, including the well-established increases in individualleisure time
and incomes in industrialized regions of the world and the greater efficiency and
availability of transportation, both public and private. Of particular concern to this
paper however is that part of the increased travel demand is due directly or indi-
rectiy to the JCTs themselves and their synergistic relations with transportation.
Distance is clearly not dead for those growing numbers of travelers stuck in city
traffic or enduring endless cramped hours on crowded airplanes. However, each
346 H. Couclelis

one of these conventional trips is increasingly likely to be a component in a

broader nexus of communications and interactions - some physical, some virtual -
that together define a single basic activity. I am flying to a conference and look
forward to meeting colleagues I have been working with over the Internet. I am
stuck in traffic and discussing a problem with an associate on my cell phone. Once
back horne I turn on my computer and respond to e-mail from my students. I am
participating in a teleconference that is saving me a trip for now, but which con-
cludes with planning one for next month. I am writing a paper on my laptop while
in a foreign country, and share an electronic draft with my co-author in California.
I am working: but when am I 'at work', and where is my workplace? (Mitchell
1995, Couclelis 1998).

The Disintegration of Activity

Underlying virtually all conventional theories and models of urban land-use struc-
ture and planning is the assumption that an activity is associated with one place at
one time: work with a workplace, shopping with a commerciallocation, schooling
with an educational facility, and so on. Tell me where you are, I can tell you what
you are doing. What is more, tell me where you work and I may be able to tell you
where you are likely to live, because I know that you are trying to optimize acces-
sibility to your most important destinations. In the information age by contrast, to
the extent that an activity involves exchange of information between or among
people, or between people and machines, that activity may be fragmented into
tasks that are widely distributed over space and across time. Whatever activity
they may be engaged in: work, recreation, shopping, education, people are in-
creasingly likely to rely on a variety of physical and digital means to gain access
to the people, tools and information they need. Some ofthese contacts can only be
realized through physical movement, some can only be realized electronically, and
some others may be realized in either way. Each of these contacts involves a geo-
graphic location where the contacted person or device is, so that several locations
may have to be accessed by the appropriate combination of travel and telecoms for
a single activity to be carried out. It is this interweaving and mutual dependence of
physical mobility and electronic communication, not merely the spreading use of
ICTs, that defines the major information-age challenge for accessibility research.
Because of these changes the familiar one-to one mapping: activity => place
becomes a one-to-many mapping: activity => places, or even a many-to-many
mapping: activities => places. The same is true of time, as the proverbial nine-
to-five weekday job gradually gets fragmented into chunks spread out over arbi-
trary hours of the day (and many of the night), interspersed with tasks from other
activities occurring at equally odd - by traditional standards - times as well as
places. The colonization of time, as this phenomenon has been called, does not
concern only the business executive who is talking with London or Tokyo in the
middle of the night just as the financial markets start trading in distant time zones.
The secretaries and the janitors, the computer support personnei, the food service
and transportation workers, the gym and the grocery store and the plumbers and
baby sitters are all part of the same nexus of interdependent activities that drive
 From Sustainable Transportation to Sustainable Aeeessibility 347

one another into unprecedented kinds of spatio-temporal configurations (Couc1elis

1996). Table 20.3 summarizes the possible spatial structures of activities in the
information age and highlights the complete symmetry with their possible tempo-
ral distributions. Converting Table 20.3 into a matrix with 25 different cells (Table
20.4) conveys the richness of possible space-time structures of activities enabled
by spatial technologies. Take, for example, work. At least since the industrial
revolution the 'all at one location, all at one time' cell has corresponded to the
overwhelmingly preponderant type of urban job, with the odd traveling salesman
or itinerant piano tuner providing a few interesting exceptions. While the majority
oftoday'sjobs may still fall within that one cell, the colonization ofthe remainder
of the matrix is proceeding rapidly in a diagonal wave of less and less space-time-
bound economic activities, reaching towards the 'anywhere, any time' outer limit
that some think is just around the corner from today (Knoke 1996). The influence
on the economy and society of the highly mobile and multiply connected 'infor-
mation workers' falling in these newly occupied cells is already acknowledged to
be disproportionate to their numbers and growing. For many areas of socioeco-
nomic research, filling out that kind of matrix with appropriate data is bound to be
a critically important task for the years to come.

Table 20.3. A taxonomy of possible spaee and time distributions of aetivities in the infor-
mation age
Loeation of aetivity Time of aetivity
all at one loeation all at one time
at alternate loeations at alternate times
distributed along a route in time sequenee
distributed aeross spaee at several different times
ubiquitous (anywhere) any time
nowhere never

Table 20.4. A matrix of spaee-time distributions of aetivities in the information age

Time one-time alternating sequential fragmented anytime
Loeation
localized
alternate
linear sequence
distributed
ubiquitous
348 H. Couclelis

Hence the central thesis ofthis paper: It is not distance that is dead; it is activity
that is disintegrating. Activity becomes a distributed space-time process, a net-
work of material movements and digital contacts, an interweaving of (electronic)
communication and (physical) action. We thus rejoin the earlier mentioned discus-
sions of place as process, communication, or network. Understood from the func-
tional, socioeconomic, cultural, rather than the strictly spatial point of view (see
Table 20.1), these outlandish-sounding notions of place amplify the idea of the
fragmentation of activity, and raise some difficult issues regarding the meaning of
territory, community, and identity in the information age (Curry and Eagles,
1999). The purview ofthis paper is however much more modest, as it only focuses
on the spatio-temporal and functional dimensions of the restructuring of place and
activity, and on the implications for accessibility of that fluid but still somewhat
tangible context. From this restricted perspective I propose the following as a
working definition of accessibility in the information age: the ability to access,
either physically or electronically, and at the appropriate time(s), all the locations
that are necessary or desirable for participating in a given activity. This implies
that there are three kinds of knowledge necessary for the study of accessibility: (1)
the distribution in physical space-time, relative to actual or potential activity par-
ticipants, of the loci of the component tasks constituting specific activities; (2) the
structure and characteristics of the access-enabling technologies, both physical and
electronic; and (3) the relations of substitution, complementarity, and synergism
among available physical and electronic options (Abler and Falk 1981). The terms
space-acijusting technologies (Abler 1975, Janelle 1991) or spatial technologies
(Couclelis 1994), designating the complex of information, communication and
transportation technologies that together work to modify spatial relations, serve to
underline the need for a common approach to two materially very different but
functionally very similar approaches to overcoming spatial separation.

20.3 Sustainable Accessibility and the Tragedy of the Commons

Sustainable Accessibility: Two Hypotheses

As we think ahead towards a research agenda for making sense of accessibility in

the information age it seems appropriate to collect the speculative arguments de-
veloped so far into a couple of tentative but eventually testable hypotheses. These
hypotheses are linked and together they help define a novel notion, sustainable
accessibility, which I will discuss in the following sections.
Hypothesis 1: Thefragmentation of activity enabled by the spatial technologies
of the information age is one of the reasons for the widely observed increases in
travei demand in the industrialized world There are three components to this hy-
pothesis: (a), the per capita demand for contacts in general (by all means, physical
and digital, and for all reasons) is growing; (b), the physical-contact (travel-
dependent) part of the demand is also growing; and (c), the fragmentation of ac-
tivities enabled by spreading ICTs is partly responsible for that increase in travel-
 From Sustainable Transportation to Sustainable Accessibility 349

C =contact set of individuals

Cp = contacts achieved through physical rnovement (primarily
or exclusively)
Ce = contacts achleved through ICTs (primarily or exclusively)
Co =the region of over1ap: contacts that may be achieved in
eitherway
t = time

Figure 20.1. Physical and electronic contacts and the possibility for substitution

dependent contact demand. The first two components of the hypothesis, which are
already weil supported by data, can be expressed in simple notation and illustrated
with a Venn diagram in Figure 20.1.
Can, and should transportation keep up with these ever-increasing demands? In
recent years the traditional goal of transportation planning has shifted from an
almost exclusive emphasis on facilitating mobility to a greater concern for acces-
sibility, in recognition of the fact that travel is (for the most part) a means towards
the end of accessing a desired or needed destination. Mobility demands are thus
better seen in the context of more fundamental accessibility requirements, which
in turn are closely linked with spatio-temporal patterns of activities at both the
individual and the systemic scales. While the goal of facilitating accessibility may
seem beyond reproach, some researchers doubt that striving to meet without fur-
ther ado the ever-mounting accessibility demands of the post-industrial or infor-
mation society is a viable strategy for transportation planning (Hodge 1995). One
may argue instead that the goal of sustainable transportation should be to meet
reasonable accessibility demands, that is, to facilitate mobility where it is really
necessary. Mobility is not really necessary where there are good alternatives to it,
as they are in the case where appropriate ICTs can substitute for physical move-
ment. Referring to the diagram above, there are two ways to slow down the
growth of the demand for physical contacts, (C p): increase the possibility for
travel substitution, or increase the attractiveness (relative utility) of substitution.
Both aim at enlarging the overlap area (Co) on the diagram: The first will ensure
that people have a choice; the second will increase the likelihood of people mak-
350 H. Couclelis

ing the correct choice from the viewpoint of sustainable transportation (Janelle
1995). This leads to the se co nd hypothesis:
Hypothesis 2: The utility of travel remains too high relative to its alternatives.
People like to travel not just because they still tend to value face-to-face contacts
and real-world destinations over their virtual counterparts but also because, con-
trary to what traditional transportation research has always assumed, travel itself
has considerable intrinsic utility. Modem automobiles are increasingly comfort-
able, pleasant and safe moving 'places' where people enjoy spending part of their
day. Inside our cars we entertain and educate ourselves, work and daydream,
smoke and snack, watch our kids or socialize with friends, nurture our self-esteem
as smart and skilled drivers. Style, pleasure, comfort and luxury are increasingly
becoming selling points in public transportation as well, at least for those who can
afford the first-class ticket. ITCs save time and money but have yet to meet the
psychic utility of driving a late-modelluxury car or even of sharing a bus seat with
a favorite fellow commuter. Undoubtedly the modal choice problem within the
growing set of spatial technologies is a much more complex one than that of
choosing among physical transportation alternatives. Fischer, Ricco, and Rammer
(1992) and Fischer and Rammer (1992) have investigated these kinds of choices
involving both physical and electronic options within contact networks of academ-
ics. It is clear that the utilities leading to such choices are multidimensional and
are influenced by a variety of characteristics pertaining to the initiator of the con-
tact, the contacted destination, the costs and benefits of the available options, and
the familiarity ofthe contact initiator with these options and their availability. This
is not much different from what is known from numerous studies of discrete
choice behavior in general and traditional modal choice research in transportation
in particular. These studies demonstrate that well-established methods of analysis
can in principle be extended to the study of information-age behaviors within the
ever-expanding set of spatial technologies. The highly interdependent choices of
contact mode made in weaving together component tasks of fragmented activities
will of course pose novel, additional challenges. These are likely to be practical
much more than conceptual, as these micro-Ievel approaches appear well suited in
principle for studying how individuals cope with these more complex choice situa-
tions.

Individual Choices, Collective Outcomes

Complementing micro-Ievel analyses, other approaches bridge the gap between

individual choices and collective outcomes and lead to intriguing insights regard-
ing emerging phenomena and externalities in a society. There is in particular a
vast class of choice situations where individual rational action backfires on the
rational actors themselves because it brings about a collective outcome that is sub-
optimal for everybody. An extensive literature exists in economics, policy science,
and game theory on this kind of paradox, of which the prisoner 's dilemma (PD),
first studied in the 1950s, is the best-known formulation. The prisoner's dilemma
describes a binary choice situation involving two players having to decide inde-
pendently from one another whether to cooperate or defect. The structure of pay-
 From Sustainable Transportation to Sustainable Accessibility 351

offs is such that while the collective optimum is reached when both players opt to
cooperate, individual rationality in ignorance of the other's choice dictates defec-
tion. More specificaIly, a prisoner's dilemma situation occurs whenever the struc-
ture of payoffs obeys the following ordering, regardless of the actual numerical
values ofthe terms (Hardin 1982):

T>R>P>S
where
R = reward for cooperating (collective optimum)
T = temptation to defect for the individual decision maker
=
P punishment for not cooperating (collective cost)
=
S 'sucker's payoff' for being the only nice person

The prisoner's dilemma and its various extensions, especially the iterated and n-
person versions, have been used widely in social choice research to investigate
individual cooperation and defection and the ensuing generation of negative exter-
nalities in a collectivity. Real-world examples abound: a water or power system
collapses during aperiod of peak use, despite dire warnings, because people are
not prepared to inconvenience themselves by cutting down on their own consump-
tion if they believe that most others will not. In a similar vein, in the absence of
external coercion, few car buyers will be persuaded to buy the less glamorous but
less polluting model, few fishermen to limit their harvest so as not to deplete the
fisheries, few developers to spare the area they live in from over-development, if
they know or believe that most others will not. These are all cases where individu-
als have a choice to cooperate, at some personal cost, towards some common goal,
or to do what is best for them individually - best, that is, as long as all or most of
the others do not decide to do the same thing. The PD-like structure of payoffs is
such that even weIl meaning, not necessarily selfish individuals are deterred from
attempting to cooperate by the belief that their small sacrifice will be in vain.
These kinds of phenomena often arise in a spatial context, as several geographers
and planners have found out (see, for example, Herniter and Wolpert 1967, Od-
land 1985, Couclelis 1989).
The case of spatial technology choices discussed in this paper is analogous to a
particularly common version of the n-person PD known as the tragedy 01 the
commons (Hardin 1968). This describes the depletion or degradation of a common
property resource or public good to which people have free and unmanaged ac-
cess. Here the common resource threatened by degradation is the transportation
system in its environmental and socioeconomic context (its 'sustainability'), and
the binary choice for individuals is whether to achieve a desired contact through a
physical trip (delect) or ICTs (cooperate), assuming that the option is available.
The other terms of the payoff structure are interpreted as follows:
352 H. Couclelis

T = temptation to defect, i.e., make a trip where telecontact is possible

R = societal reward for cooperating: sustainable transportation!
P = societal punishment for not cooperating: increasing social costs of
transportation
S = sucker's payoff: you stay glued at your computer while your associates
are enjoying a pleasant trip and face-to-face contacts

The well-known work ofAxelrod (1984, 1997) and others on the iterated PD
tempers the cynicism of the original PD by showing that cooperation makes good
sense for individuals involved in repeated transactions with others. Also,
Schelling's (1978) cIassic analysis of the n-person version demonstrates that a
collective optimum is often possible even when (or provided that) some fraction of
the participants opt to defect. Schelling's work has especially interesting implica-
tions for policy making because it shows that in the n-person case several different
outcomes are likely depending on the relative numerical values of the payoffs,
rather than just their rank orderings. In some cases manipulating slightly the val-
ues of individual rewards and punishments (in this case: the utility of telecontacts
versus the utility of physical travel) can help steer the system towards its collec-
tively optimal state despite a number of 'free riders' who will take advantage of
others' restrain. Indeed, the optimal transportation conditions are not achieved
when no one is traveling but when just enough are traveling at any one time so as
to keep both the trafiic flowing and the gas stations in business. The value of this
kind of analysis lies in the possibility to quantify the obvious qualitative fact that
deliberate policy measures that make travel less attractive or that increase the util-
ity of telecontacts are likely to encourage ICT substitution for traveI. On the other
hand, the analysis also suggests that changing relative utilities and feedbacks
within a dynamic system are Iikely to bring about adjustments towards the collec-
tive optimum even in the absence of any external intervention. In a reasonably
rational world, as more and more people are deterred by the individual costs and
negative externalities of increasing congestion (decreasing T, increasing P), more
and more should be seeking out alternatives. The self-correcting property of high
congestion has often been argued but less often observed on our transportation
networks. It is conceivable that in the not too distant future ICTs will offer the
higher-utility alternatives that other conventional measures of trip reduction have
not been able to provide.
The implications of the notion of sustainable accessibility range weIl beyond
transportation systems to urban structure, the environment, the economy, and so-
ciety. Conventional planning wisdom holds that compact rather than diffuse urban
forms, mixed rather than segregated land uses, reliance on public rather than pri-
vate transport -for example, European-type rather than American-type cities -
help achieve higher levels of overall accessibility with lower negative socioeco-
nomic and environmental impacts. This may no longer hold true in the informa-
tion age. Indeed, it is likely that in settings with high overall physical accessibility
there is less incentive for individuals to meet the proliferating demands for con-
tacts through virtual rather than physical interaction, leading to increasing pres-
sures on the transportation infrastructure with all the associated societal costs. We
 From Sustainable Transportation to Sustainable Accessibility 353

have seen something like this happen time and time again in the best laid out
modem cities where neither accessibility nor transportation proved sustainable in
the long run. What is new is that planners now have even less control over the
location of today's fragmented activities (and the ensuing growing transportation
demands ) than they did when living, working, shopping, leaming, or recreating
were each to be found in their own pre-assigned places. Is it a feasible goal for
transportation to make everywhere easily accessible from everywhere? Are acces-
sibility and sustainability public goods vulnerable to the 'tragedy of the com-
mons'? If so, what societal and planning responses are appropriate? The research
challenges are formidable, and we have just begun to scratch the surface.

20.4. In Lieu of Conclusions: Some Broad Research Questions

This paper has made several claims that demand to be tested through both empiri-
cal research and more rigorous theoretical development. These are as folIows:
First, that a useful conceptualization of accessibility in the information age may be
based not on the 'death of distance' metaphor but on a new functional conception
of activity (and perhaps also place) as spatially fragmented. Second, that the frag-
mentation of activity directly contributes to the somewhat paradoxical rapid
growth in travel demand especially noticeable in countries with the highest rates
of ICT development. Third, that because of the growing spatio-temporal plasticity
and fragmentation of activities, planners have less control than ever before on
what activities take place where (and when). Fourth, that planners should perhaps
not strive to keep up uncritically with pro li fe rating mobility demands but espouse
instead the notion of sustainable accessibility. Fifth, that physical travel remains
too attractive relative to viable ICT-based alternatives, but that the 'tragedy of the
commons' some fear will result may turn out to be to so me degree self-correcting.
To what extent these sweeping statements may be true or helpful for understand-
ing accessibility in the information age, or for informing planning and policy mak-
ing in related domains, cannot be said for sure at this point. As the chapters in this
book have shown there are too many defining aspects of the issue where either the
data or the appropriate conceptual frameworks are simply lacking. Concerning the
notion of sustainable accessibility highlighted in this essay, perhaps the most criti-
cal empirical question is finding out how the relative growth of physical and digi-
tal contacts in people's contact sets may be affected by a range of factors that may
differ widely from place to place. This chapter is based on the U.S. experience and
may not reflect how the issues discussed may be perceived from the viewpoints of
other nations. Comparative studies are very appropriate here, examining, for ex-
ample, regions of the world that are similar in general socio-economic terms but
different in terms of some obviously important variables such as spatial structure,
ICT presence, or degree of planning contro!. Such research could look at the gen-
erally different structures of ~ say ~ European and American cities (e.g., high-
density vs. low-density, public-transit oriented versus automobile oriented); the
different rates of Internet connectivity, access and use in Europe and the United
354 H. Couclelis

States; the different degrees and effectiveness of planning intervention in Europe

and the United States; or the different degrees of socio-spatial segregation observ-
able in European and American cities. Other major research challenges derive
from the choices people will make among expanding sets of functionally similar
but materially extremely dissimilar contact alternatives, and the implications of
these choices at all geographie scales for the economy, the environment, further
technological development, social welfare and social equity, our cities and re-
gions, politics and culture, and practically every aspect of human life (Castells
1989, 1996, 1998). As material, psychologieal, socio-economic and cultural inertia
meet the still unexplored world of cyberspace, we find ourselves increasingly
challenged by new mixtures of the familiar and relatively weil understood with the
outlandish and incomprehensible. In trying to figure out what is going on, extrapo-
lating from past experience will need to go hand in hand with inventing new con-
ceptual frameworks for phenomena that we currently have no name for, and that
only recently were in the realm of science fiction.

Acknow ledgements

This paper was first presented at the conference on Social Change and Sustainable Trans-
port (SCAST), co-sponsored by the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) and the Euro-
pean Science Foundation (ESF). My thanks to Professor Bill Black and the other SCAST
conference organizers for their generous support, and to Professor Hugo Priemus and his
group at the TU Delfl, the Netherlands, for thoughtful comments and another opportunity to
air these ideas.

References
Abler, R 1975. Effects of space adjusting technologies on the human geography of the
future. In Abler R, Janelle, D., Philbrick, A. and Sommer, J. (eds.) Human Geography in
a Shrinking World. North Scituate MA: Duxbury Press, 35-56.
Abler, RF., and Falk, T. 1981. Public information services and the changing role of dis-
tance in human affairs. Economic Geography, 57: 10-22.
Adams, P. 1998. Network topologies and virtual place. Annals ofthe Association ofAmeri-
can Geographers, 88: 88-106.
Axelrod, R 1984. The Evolution ofEooperation. New York: Basic Books.
Axelrod, R. 1997. The Complexity ofCooperation: Agent-based Models ofCompetition and
Collaboration. Princeton Studies in Complexity. Princeton NJ: Princeton University
Press.
Bolton, R. 1997. 'Place' as 'network': Applications ofnetwork theory to local communities.
Volume in honor of T.R. Lakshmanan, Department of Economics, Williams College,
Williamstown MA 01267, December.
Bureau of Transportation Statistics (1997). American Travel Survey 1995, BTS/ATS95-US.
US Department ofTransportation, Washington DC.
Cairncross, F. 1997. The Death of Distance: How the Communications Revolution will
Change Dur Lives. Boston MA: Harvard Business School Press.
Castells, M. 1989. The Informational City: Information Technology, Economic Restructur-
ing, and the Urban-regional Process. Oxford: Blackwell.
 From Sustainable Transportation to Sustainable Accessibility 355

Castells, M. 1996. The Rise of the Network Society. The Information Age: Economy, Soci-
ety, and Culture, 1. Oxford: Blackwell.
Castells, M. 1998. End of Millennium. The Information Age: Economy, Society and Cu 1-
ture, 3. Oxford: Blackwell.
Coucielis, H. 1989. Macrostructure and microbehavior in a metropolitan area. Environment
and Planning B 16:141-54.
Coucielis, H. 1994. Spatial technologies. Environment and Planning B: Planning and De-
sign 21:142-43.
Coucielis, H. 1996a. The death of distance. Environment and Planning B: Planning and
Design 23:387-89.
Coucielis, H. 1996b (ed.). Spatial Technologies, Geographic Information, and the City., TR
96-7. National Center for Geographie Information and Analysis, Santa Barbara CA.
Coucielis, H. 1998. The new field workers. Environment and Planning B: Planning and
Design 25:321-23.
Curry, M., and Eagles, M. 1999 (eds). Place and Identity in an Age of Technologically
Regulated Movement, National Center for Geographie Information and Analysis, Santa
Barbara CA.
Fischer, M.F., Ricco, M. and Rammer, C. 1992. Telecommunication media choice behavior
in academia: an Austrian-Swiss comparison. Geographical Analysis 24:1-15.
Fischer, M.F. and Rammer, C. 1992. Kommunikationsnetze von Wissenschaftlern: Ergeb-
nisse einer Fallstudie and Wiener Universitaeten. Mitteilungen Der Oesterreichischen
Geographischen Gesellschaft 134: 159-76.
Graham, S. and Marvin, S. 1996. Telecommunications and the City: Electronic Spaces,
Urban Places. London: Routledge.
Hardin, G. 1968. The tragedy ofthe commons. Science 162:1243-48.
Hardin, R. 1982. Collective action as an agreeable n-prisoner's dilemma. In Hardin, R., and
Barry, B. (eds.) Rational Man, Irrational Society. Beverly Hills: Sage, 123-35.
Herniter, J. and Wolpert J. 1967. Coalition structures in the three-person non-zero-sum
game. Peace Research Society: Papers 8:97-108.
Hodge, D.C. 1995. Intelligent transportation systems, land use, and sustainable transporta-
tion. Paper presented at the ITS America Alternative Futures Symposium on Transporta-
tion, Technology, and Society, Washington DC.
Janelle, D.G. 1991. Global interdependence and its consequences. In Brunn, S.D. and Lein-
bach, T.R. (eds.) Collapsing Space and Time: Geographic Aspects ofCommunications
and Information. London: Harper Collins Academic, 49-81.
Janelle, D.G. 1995. Metropolitan expansion, telecommuting, and transportation. In Hanson,
S. (ed.) The Geography ofUrban Transportation. 2d ed. New York: Guilford Press, 407-
35.
Johnston, R.J. 1997. The end of distance but a continuing bounded journey through space?
Environment and Planning B: Planning and Design, 24:319-22.
Knoke, W. 1996. Bold New World: The Essential Road Map to the Twenty-first Century.
New York: Kodansha International.
MitchelI, W.J. 1995. City of Bits: Space, Place, and the Infobahn. Cambridge MA: The
MIT Press.
Odland, J. 1985. Interdependence and deterioration in the housing stock of an American
city. In Haynes, K. E., Kuklinski, A., and Kultalahti, O. (eds.) Pathologies ofUrban Pro-
cesses. Tampore: Finn Publishers, 323-39.
356 H. Couclelis

Office of Technology Assessment (1995). The Technological Restructuring 0/ Metropolitan

America. US Congress, OTA-ATI-643. Washington DC: US Govemment Printing Of-
fice.
Papageorgiou, G. 1987. Spatial public goods. 1: theory. Environment and Planning A,
19:471-92.
Schelling, T. 1978. Micromotives and Macrobehavior. New York: Norton.
Figures

3.1 The Greater Los Angeles study area 33

3.2 Greater Los Angeles, 1990. Accessibility scores based on the spatial
distribution of jobs and workers. Scale of analysis: 5 miles 34
3.3 Greater Los Angeles, 1990. Accessibility scores based on the spatial
distribution of jobs and workers. Scale of analysis: 10 miles 35
3.4 Greater Los Angeles, 1990. Accessibility scores based on the spatial
distribution of jobs and workers. Scale of analysis: 15 miles 35
3.5 Variations in accessibility with changes in scale 36
3.6 Greater Los Angeles, 1990. Accessibility scores based on travel-time costs 37
3.7 Greater Los Angeles, 1990. Transportation network impacts on accessibility 38
3.8 Greater Los Angeles, 1990. Accessibility scores based onfunctional travel times 40
3.9 Greater Los Angeles, 1990. Comparison of actual travel times to functional
travel times 41
3.10 Greater Los Angeles, 1990. Accessibility score stability 42

4.1 Decrease in employment accessibility for workers who travel by auto

and who are not potential telecommuters 63
4.2 Increase in employment aecessibility for workers who travel by auto
and who are potential teleeommuters 64
4.3 Relationship between the change and the pre-existing level of
employment aecessibility for workers who travel by auto 65
4.4 Relationship between the change and the pre-existing level of
employment aceessibility for workers who travel by public transit 66
4.5 Change in the overall level of employment aceessibility when
telecommuting beeomes an option for many workers 67

5.1 An exploded view ofthree binary masks for a rectangular area over
five time periods 77
5.2 Extending time-geographie eoncepts 80
5.3 Potential aeeess and interaction in Auekland 81
5.4 Potential impacts of physical/virtual substitution 86

6.1 Crisp versus fuzzy urban sets 93

6.2 Intersection and union of fuzzy sets 94
6.3 Fuzzy power sets derived from geographie spaee 97
358 Figures

6.4 Fuzzy power set for n = 3 101

6.5 Fuzzy associate memories (FAM) 104

7.1 Location ofInternet hosts by county, 1997 114

7.2 Internet hosts by continents and distribution ofthe 1,000 most popular
Web sites in 1997 116
7.3 Location of Internet households in the United States, 1997 118
7.4 Household computer ownership in the United States, 1997 118
7.5 Distribution ofU.S. Internet hosts per 1,000 people by state, 1997 119
7.6 Distribution ofInternet domains in Texas, 1998 121

8.1 Geographic abstraction of physical, virtual and hybrid worlds 134

8.2 The new geography of economic potential: accessibility to Internet hubs 140
8.3. Morphologies ofvirtual space: cyberspace. (a) the fractal structure of
the Internet; (b) the spatial structure of a virtual world - Alphaworld 141
8.4 Morphologies of real space: euclidean geographical space.
(a) the route structure of a medium-sized English town; and
(d) a model ofurban growth based on diffusion-limited aggregation 142

9.1 Location of Canadian Internet use by region, September 1998 157

9.2 Provinces and Time Zones of Canada 159
9.3 Social environment across Canada at 10:00 a.m. Newfoundland time 160
9.4 Social environment across Canadian at 3:00 p.m. Newfoundland time 161
9.5 Canadian ITA adjusted to Internet usage showing Internet-accessible
Canadians at selected times for Newfoundland 162
9.6 Preliminary cartographic depiction ofITA in Canada, 8:30 a.m.,
Newfoundland time 165
9.7 Preliminary cartographic depiction ofITA in Canada, 7:30 p.m.,
Newfoundland time 166

10.1 A typical domain name registration record 177

11.1 Information spaces of the Internet - circa 1994 189

11.2 Internet Weather Report (IWR) for California 192
11.3 Calculating distance in virtual space 195
11.4 Web Scan showing the most accessible Web sites ofUK universities 195
11.5 Screen-shot of AlphaWorld's 3d environment and user avatars 197
11.6 Maps ofthe city at the center of AlphaWorld in December 1996
and February 1998 200

12.1 Telephone availability for various countries vs. the speed ofthe Internet
connection (measured using latency) between those countries
and the Uni ted Kingdom 206
12.2 Gross Domestic Product (GDP) for various countries versus speed
ofthe Internet connections (measured using latency) between those
countries and the United Kingdom 206
 Figures 359

12.3 Latency distance decay curve derived in the Murnion and Healey (1998) study 208
12.4 Locating a remote object 0 using triangulation 209
12.5 Correlation on ten routes between latency in each direction plotted against
the average latency in both directions for that route 211
12.6 The average latency measured in one direction plotted against the average
latency measured in the reverse direction for 10 separate information flow
routes 211
12.7 The locations ofthe computers used in the Internet triangulation exercise 212
12.8 SimuItaneous latency measurements taken for the attempted triangulation 212
12.9 Latency predicted by the neural network against the actual measured latency 213
12.10 Latency between Helsinki and Cape Town 214

13.1 Extensibility diagram indicating the subject's mobility and communications

for a typical Thursday in autumn 1997 224
13.2 Extensibility diagram indicating the subject's mobility and
communications for a typical Thursday in autumn 1997 227
13.3 Extensibility diagram indicating the subject's mobility and
communications for a typical Thursday in autumn 1997 228
13.4 Extensibility diagram indicating the subject's mobility and
communications for a typical Thursday in autumn 1997 230
13.5 Extensibility diagram indicating the subject's mobility and
communications for a typical Thursday in autumn 1997 232
13.6 Extensibility diagram combining Figures 13.1 - 13.5, and also showing
communications between Diann and other participants 235
13.7 Extensibility diagram combining Figures 13.1-13.5, and also showing
communications between Diann and other participants 236
13.8 Approximate percentage ofwaking hours spent by each participant
communicating at a given range, incoming and outgoing
communications - combined 238

14.1 A two-dimensional representation ofthe three map layers after transformation 250
14.2 A multi-scale, 3D representation ofthe individual's space-time paths 251
14.3 An extensibility diagram ofa set ofhypothetical activities 252

17.1 Approaches to the analysis of accessibility 292

17.2 Conceptual framework for the IRES survey on accessibility 297

19.1 Standard Western cartographic representations: Mercator and Gnomic

projections 323
19.2 A standard city plan: Austin, Texas 324
19.3 A medieval European T-O map 325
19.4 A Blackfoot tipi cover, painted with war episodes 326
19.5 A map from Paulo Freire's pedagogical exercises 327

20.1 Physical and electronic contacts and the possibility for substitution 349
Tables

5.1 Representingpresence of objects and events in space-time 78

7.1 Accessibility versus adaptability: syntax, semanties, and pragmatics 112

7.2 The most wired countries in the world: Top 15 nations by Internet
population by the end of 1998 114
7.3 The changing Internet user profile (1994-1997) 115
7.4 Online trends among Internet user households 117
7.5 America's most wired cities: Top U.S. cities ranked by percent
ofpopulation online 120
7.6 Possible methods and techniques to handle surprises in modeling 121

9.1 Spatial and temporal constraints on communication systems 150

9.2 Constraints on random personal real-time Internet accessibility 153
9.3 Internet use by language 153
9.4 Spheres of the social environment 155
9.5 Social environment 156
9.6 Location ofInternet access in Canada, September 1998 157
9.7 Dimensions ofthe social environment 158
9.8 Social environment across Canada, 3:00 p.m. Newfoundland time 163
9.9 Canadian accessibility at selected Newfoundland times 164

10.1 Top 25 counties by number ofInternet hosts, January 1996 175

10.2 Trends in growth of domain name registrations, 1994-1997 178
10.3 Domain name registrations by metropolitan area: January 1998 179
10.4 Top 10 metropolitan areas by backbone capacity 181

14.1 Activities undertaken by Pu i-Fun on the diary day 248

17.1 Some definitions of accessibility 284

17.2 A meta-typology ofthe urban system in an evolutionary perspective 287

20.1 Diverse views and perspectives on accessibility 343

20.2 Views and perspectives on transportation 344
362 Tables

20.3 A taxonomy of possible space and time distributions of activities

in the information age 347
20.4 A matrix of space-time distributions of activities in the information age 347
Author Index

Aberley, D. 323, 335 Berry, B. 59

Abler, R.F. 108, 137, 183,207,348 Bertuglia, C.S. 279, 281-283, 285, 293
Adams, P.C. 6, 8-9, 190,217-219,242- Bharat, K. 193
245,253,345 Blaek, C.L. 314-315
Albreeht, 1 331 Blaekburn, R. 329
Albreeht, lA. 76, 78 Bolton, R. 102, 345
Alderman, D.H. 193 Borgers, A.W.l 25
Allardt, E. 154 Boswell, S. 76, 82
Amin, A. 279 Bravo, M.T. 323
Anders, P. 197,201 Bray, T. 194
Anderson, M. 285 Breheny, M.l 23
Andersson, A.E. 283 Brin, D. 108
AnseIin, L. 241 Broder, A. 193
Arentze, T.A. 25 Brody, H. 323
Arnheim, R. 322 Brotehie, lF. 285
Arrow, K.l 112 Bruinsma, K. 282
Arthur, W.B. 122, 124 Brunn, S.D. 187
Asheim, B. 123 Brynjolfsson, E. 108, 271
ASIS 188 Bryson, M.l 290
Atkinson, R.D. 47 Buehanan, J.M. 91, 96
Axelrod, R. 354 Bunge, W. 74
Bureh, H. 140
Barker, R.G. 154 Bureau ofTransportation Statisties 345
Barnes, T.l 111 Burns, L.D. 23, 242, 244-245, 284
Batten, D.F. 285
Batty, M. 5, 7, 9, 47, 124, 135, 148, 161- Cairneross, F. 113, 133, 150, 198,345
162, 190, 194,288,294-295
Capra, F. 123
Beekett, D. 194
Carlin, S. 241
Bednarz, R.S. 109
Carlstein, T. 243, 281
Beguin, H. 136
Castells, M. 59,133,171,190,219,223,
Ben-Akiva, M. 284 319,344,354
Bennett, R.J. 290 Casti, J.L. 125,292,294
Berghel, H. 188 Chapin, F.S. 75
364 Author Index

Chatwin, B. 322 Fagrell, H. 194

Chen, L.L. 190 Falk, T. 348
Cheswick, B. 140 Feenberg, A 3 19
Chintz, B. 21 Feldman, ~.P. 122
Circle ofFire Studios, Inc., 197-198 Fellmann, J. 148
Clarke, G.P. 281 Femandez Kelly, P. 272
Clarke, K. 135 Fischer, ~. 124,207
Clemente, P. 110, 115, 189, 193 Fischer, ~.F. 350
Cleveland, H. 270 Fiske, J. 221
Clinton, W. 4 Fleck, 1. 112
Coleman, J. 272 Florida, R. 122-123
Collins, D. 331 Flusty, S. 229
Cooke, P. 122 Forer, P. 8-9,17-18,76-78,80,82,241,
Comes, R. 91, 96 245-246
Couclelis, H. 4, 10-11, 25-28, 48, 107, Forester, J. 331
112, 124, 198, 244, 279, 288, 294- Forsher, J. 329
295, 345-348, 351 Fotheringham, A.S. 23
Crosby, B.C. 290 Freeman, C. 285
Crouch, S. 267 Freire, P. 327, 331, 333
Curry,~.219,345,348 Friend, 1.K. 294
CyberAtlas, Inc. 118, 120
Gadamer, H-G. 322, 334
D'Amico, R. 322 Gaines, B.R. 190
Dalvi, ~.Q. 284 Gant, 1. 122
Daly, 1.A 207 Garreau, J. 179
Damer, B. 197, 199 Garrison, W.L. 74
Davenport, T.H. 108 Gaspar, J. 172
Davidoff, P. 331 Gates, B. 122
Davis, C. 184 Gatrell, AC. 27
Dawkins, R. 113 Geertman, S.c.~. 25
Dear,~. 229 George, G. 82
December, J. 187, 189 Gertler, ~. 122
Dijst,~. 74 Getis,A 7,17,28-32,43,148
Dodge, ~. 4, 6, 8, 135-136, 139-141, Getis, J. 148
162,173, 187, 194-196 Giddens, A. 150, 242, 244
Donath, 1.S. 197 Gilder, G. 183
Dumble, P.L. 23, 48-49, 281, 295 Giles, C.L. 193
Dunne, 1.S. 333-334 Gillespie, A 67
Dyson, E. 193 Giloth, R. 274
Giuliano, G. 21-22, 32
Eagles, ~. 345, 348 Glaeser, E. 172
Egenhofer, ~.J. 161 Golledge, R.G. 137, 161
England, R.W. 111 Good, D.B. 193
 Author Index 365

Goodchild, M.F. 5,7,75,158,161,317 Holly, B.P. 294

Gopal, S. 124,207 Hong, X-D 245
Gottmann, 1. 59, 173 Hubberman,B.A. 139,190,194
Gould, P. 22, 323-325, 335 Hughes, T.P. 110
Graham,S.21,150,219,270,279,344 Huisman, O. 8-9, 17, 76, 78, 80,241,
Granovetter, M. 272-273 245-246
Greenstein, S. 173
Gretchen, P. 191 Information Highway Advisory Council
Guernsey, L. 312 156
Ingram, D.R 23,284
Habermas, 1. 220, 331 lnvesters Business Daily 337
Hägerstrand, T. 17, 73, 76-77, 79, 108, lRES 283, 297
284,151,155,217,243-244,246 ITU 189,193
Hall, P. 59, 172
Handy, S.L. 24, 62, 74, 107, 294-295, Jackson, M.H. 193
297 Janelle, D.G. 75, 117, 137, 150, 158,
Hannay, A 319 161,217,242-244,253,348,350
Hansen, W.G. 281, 284 Jankowski, P. 3 14
Hanson, S. 6, 11,23-24,28,39,77, 107, Jellinek, D. 194
241,262,265,270,272-273,281 Jessop, W.N. 294
Hanssen-Bauer,1. 123 Jiang, B. 162
Hardin, G. 351 Jin, DJ. 123
Hardin, R. 351 JISC 205
Harrison, B. 122 Johnson, B. 123
Harvey, A 9, 75, 117, 137, 149, 154- Johnson, 1.P. 307
156, 158, 191,264 Johnston, R1. 345
Harvey, D. 26, 113 Jonas, AE.G. 219
Haynes, K.E. 23 Jones, S. 271
Healey, R.G. 191,207-208 Jones, S.R 23
Heelan, P. 322
Heidegger, M. 322, 334 Kant, I. 125
Heikkila, EJ. 9, 17-18, 88, 91 Karjala, D. 309
Helgeson, S. 234 Kasarda, 1. 48, 52, 62
Helling, A. 22, 24, 282-283, 294 Kelly, K. 122
Henkel, T. 193 Kelly, M. 122
Herniter, 1. 351 Kiesler, S. 271
Hillis, K. 197 Kingsolver, B. 271
Hisatake, T. 323 Kling, R. 156
Hodge, D.C. 107,241,342,349 Klinkenberg, B. 75, 158, 161
Hodgson, G.M. 111 Knight, RV. 288
Hoffman, D.L. 60 Knobel, M. 332
Hoffman, E. 187 Knoke, W. 347
Holderness, M. 187 Knox, P.L. 22-24
Holland, J.H. 124 Kobayashi, K. 283
366 Author Index

Koenig, J.G. 22, 281 Marvin, S. 21, 150,219,279,344

Kolko, J. 179 Maslow, AH. 154
Kominiak, T. 241 MathSoft, Inc. 246
Kosko, B. 91, 93, 95-96, 98, 104 Mazzioti, D.F. 329
Krol, E. 187 McCoshan, A. 290
Krugman, P. 122 MCI243
Kumagai, T.G. 22, 24 McIntyre, A 322, 334
Kwan, M-P. 6-9, 25, 75, 107, 187,241- McLauglin, M. 197
243,245-246,282-283 McNamara, C. 285
McQuail, D. 225
Langran, G. 161 Meier, RL. 59
Lankshear, C. 332 Meir, R 274
Lawrence, S. 193 Merleau-Ponty, M. 322
Lawton, R 26 Mey, M.G. 77
Leebaert, D. 107 MIDS, Inc. 113, 121, 171, 174, 209,
Lefebvre, H. 321 243,259
Lenntorp, B. 76, 244 Miles, I. 286
Leonardi, G. 281 Miller, HJ. 5, 7, 9, 25, 75, 77, 107, 136-
Lerman, R. 284 137,241-242,245
Lesk, M. 193 Ming, C. 75
Levendel, G. 311 Mirowski, P. 111
Lewin, K. 154 MitcheII, WJ. 51, 59, 113, 136, 260,
346
Lewis, G.M. 323
Leydesdorff, L.A 124 Mitchelson, R.L. 173, 183
Lim, G-C. 331 Mody, A 112
Litan RE. 107 Mokhtarian, P.L. 48, 51, 60, 62
Lizardo, M. 173 Mokyr, J. 109
Loader, B. 319 Mollenkkoph, R. 319
Lober, D.J. 314 Moodie, D.W. 323
Moore, J.F. 122
Lombardo, S. 283
Lowy, A 122 Morales, R. 32
Löytönen, M. 77 Morgan, K. 122
Morris, J.M. 23, 48-49, 281, 295
Lukose, R.M. 190
Lundvall, B. 123 Moss, M.L. 7-8, 75, 136, 139, 175, 178-
181
Lynch, A 109
Mugerauer, R. 11,262,321-322
Muller, J-C. 136
MacEachren, AM. 161
Mumion, S. 8,136,139,173,191,207-
Macnab, PA 9, 75, 117, 137, 191,264 208
Margheirio, L. 110
Markoff, J. 139 Negroponte, N. 133, 183
MarshalI, A 122 Neilson Canada 157
Martellato, D. 283 Nelson, RR. 111
Martin, K.M. 284 Network Wizards 193
 Author Index 367

Nielson, J. 190, 193 Putnam, R. 273

Niemeier, D.A. 74, 107, 294-295, 297
Niles, J.S. 70 Quarterman, J.S. 191-192
Niskanen, W.A. 107
Norris, D.A. 193 Rabino, G.A. 279, 286, 288
Novak, T.P. 60 Rafaeli, S. 197
NTIA 319 Rammer, C. 350
NUA 110, 193 Rao, R. 188, 194
Nunberg, G. 311-312 Ravenstein, E.G. 15
Nunn, S. 173 Reiner, T.A. 331
Nyerges, T. 314 Reitveld, P. 282
Rheingold, H. 148
Occelli, S. 10-11,20,75, 107,262,279, Ricco, M. 350
282-283,285-286,288,293-294,343 Rickard, J. 180, 191
Odlund, J. 351 Ritsema Van Eck, J.R. 25
Office of Technology Assessment 48, Roberts, P. 82
52,344 Robins, K. 67, 286
Ohmae, K. 113 Robson, M. 319
Ong, P. 62
Rogers, J.D. 110
Onsrud, HJ. 6,10,109,264,307,310
Rogerson, P.A. 123
Ord, J.K. 17, 28-32, 43 Rose, G. 244
Ormeling, FJ. 162 Rosenberg, N. 122
Rossney, R. 197
Palm, R. 245
Rundstrom, R.A. 323
Papageorgiou, G. 280, 344
Parkes, D. 281 Sack, R. 219-220
Parmenter, B. 318 Salomon, I. 48, 51, 60, 62, 136
Paters, M. 332 Samuelson, P. 309, 311
Paton, R. 124 Sandler, T. 91, 96
Paxson, V. 191 Sanyal, R. 3 19
Perez, C. 285 Schelling, T. 352
PetcheII, J. 123 Schiller, H.l. 319
Peters, M.A. 82 Schindler, P.E. 108
Pirie, G.H. 22, 74,148, 284 Schneider, A. 154-155
Pirolli, P. 188, 194 Schroeder, P. 313
Pitkow, J. 188, 194
Schroeder, R. 197-198
Pooler, J. 74
Schuler, D. 151, 156
Portes, A. 272 Schwab, M. 23, 281
Powell, W. 123
Scott, A. 122
Pratt, G. 272-273
Scott, L.M. 6, 9,16-17,241,343
Pred, A. 28, 173, 245
Senge, P.M. 125
Purcell, D. 193
Sensen brenner, 1. 272
Putnam, C. 331
Shannon, G. 271
368 Author Index

Shaw, L. 190 Toulemonde, J. 293

Shen,Q.6, 9-10, 17,48-50,65, 111, 136 Townsend, A.M. 7-8, 75, 136, 139, 175,
Sheppard, E. 5, 25 178-181
Shiode, N. 139-140, 173, 194 Tumbull, D. 323
Shiva, V. 313, 315 Turoff, M. 288, 290, 292
Simon, H.A. 108
Simpson, W. 28 V.S. DOT 51,62
SmalI, K.A. 32 Vniversity ofOregon 209
Smith, N. 26
Smith, T.E. 136 Van AIstyne, M. 271
Smith-Doerr, L. 123 van den Besselaar, P. 127
Smoot, C.M. 191 van der Poel, M.G.M. 123
Snow, C. 123 Varenius, B. 317
Soja, E. 32 Vasiliev,1. 161
Sorensen, C. 194 Vickerman, R.W. 284
Spector, AN. 137 Vidakovic, V. 74
Spiller, P. 173 Vilett, R 198, 200
Sproull, L. 271 Villoria, O.G. 244
Standage, T. 184
Stefik, M. 311 Wachs, M. 22, 24, 281
Stewart, J.Q. 139 Walhus, M. 323
Storper, M. 122 Warf, B. 122
Stough, RR 123 Wamtz, W. 15,74, 139
Strogatz, S.H. 140 Warren, R. 173
Sudweeks, F. 197 Watts, DJ. 140
Sui, D.Z. 6, 10-11, 20, 110, 112, 173, Weaver, W. 271
259,293 Webber, M.M. 59, 135
Sunao, S. 283 Weibull, J.W. 48-49, 74, 281
Wheeler, J.O. 67, 173, 183
Talen, E. 241 White, D.M. 225
Tapscott, D. 122 White, R 323-325, 335
Taylor, J. 197 Wigan, M.R. 23, 48-49, 281, 295
Teitz, M.B. 62 Wilson, AG. 15,68,281
TeleGeography, Inc. 113-114, 116 Wilson, E.O. 113
Ter Heide 77 Wilson, M.I. 11
Thiis-Evensen, T. 322 Wilson, W.J. 62
Thisse, J-F. 136 Windahl, S. 225
Thrift, N. 243-244, 281 Wineburg, S. 39, 137
Ticoll, D. 122 Winnecki, J. 307
Tiebout, C. 91, 96 Wolff, G. 32
Timmermans, H.J.P. 25 Wolpert, J. 351
Tobler, W.R 39, 137 Woodruff, A 194
Toffier, A 183 Woodward, D. 323
 Author Index 369

Wresch, W. 187 Yang, S. 108

Wu, Y. 75 Y oshikawa, K. 283
Wurman, R.S. 188,193
Zadeh, L.A. 91, 93, 98
Xie, Y. 288 Zipf, G. 15
Subject Index
accessibility 16-17, 22-23, 48, 136, 207,
217, 234, 242-244, 262, 341-354;
conceptualizing and measuring 15-
20, 49-56, 74-76, 91, 107-113, 136-
143,148-149,187-194,268-277,279-
294, 303, 313; and cyberspace 7-8;
determinants of 287; and fuzzy sets
96-100; hybrid physical-virtual 241-
245; index of 24-25, 147-149; indi-
vidual343; and information 5-6, 187-
201, 261, 267-268, 303-304; internet
171; intra-metropolitan 21-45;
isochronic 23; hybrid 241-244; junc-
tion 280-284, 290, 294, 343; land-
scape 341; vs. mobility 24,74; models
24-, 81, 290-291; negotiated 292; as
opportunity 341; outcome 23; per-
sonal real-time 148-153; perfect 31-
32; and place 6-7, 343; poor zones 50,
56; potential 23, 167; as process 20;
real-time 148; as resource 282-283;
rich zones 50, 56, 61; service defini-
tion of 28-30; as space-time phe-
nomenon 73-76, 83-84, 343; surface
74; sustainable 341-354
activity: daily 57, 154, 247, 284; disin-
tegration 346-348; fragmentation of
342, 348-353; informal 82; patterns
158-168,241-248,280-285,296,342-
347; schedules 73-74, 78-82, 222-232,
246-248; settings 154, 347; spaces
143-144,296-297
adaptability 11,20,107-113
advocacy 331
agency 217, 220, 229, 244, 283
alienation 154
Alphaworld 140-141, 197-200
AltaVista 194
Amazon.com 134
analysis of variance 91
ArcInfo 247, 249
ArcView 3D Analyst 247-250
ARPANET 196
atoms 133-134
authorship 307-309
automobiles 4, 11, 18, 21, 57-65, 341-
354
bits 133-134
Boolean operations 77
Boston Metropolitan Area 48, 61-68
Braille 152
browsing 8, 187,241,247-253
Computer Assisted Design (CAD) 6, 9,
221-222,237
Canada 147,157-168,264
capability, personal 152; technological
152
cartography 145, 322-323, 334-336
cellular, automata 124-125; space-time
approach 73, 76-78
central business district 61
central place system 139
chaos theory 123, 125
city: edge 135, 179; Fordist 285, 286,
296; Post-Fordist 285, 287; Pre-
industrial 285-287; Post-industrial 19;
systems 172-174, 180-183; wired 120,
178-179
class division 287, 320
Clinton, President 305
372 Subject Index
Clinton-Gore Administration 184
club theory 91, 96-98
communications 133, 150-153, 220-238,
281, 289; computer-mediated 147;
distanciated 150, 246
communicative action 220
community 3, 6, 305
commuting 61-62
complex systems 18, 123, 288, 292
complexity theory 113
computers 4, 21, 119-122, 133, 144,
148-152,174-176,187,209-213,259-
261,275,287-289
constraints 151,281-282; authority 151-
156, 168; capability 151-153, 156,
168; coupling 151-156, 168
copyright law 306--312
cost recovery 307
critical theory 321, 331
cultural capital 233, 272-273, 276, 317
cultural diversity 10-11
cyber: medicine 4; navigation 8, 138,
144; ports 86-87; spatial analysis 136
cyberspace vii, 3-4, 6-8, 10, 17, 83-85,
133-136, 167, 187, 194-197, 201,
243-247, 253, 277; structure of 138-
141,193
Darwinism 320
databases 68-70, 113, 305-306, 336
decentralization 58-59, 183
Declaration o/Independence 314
diffusion 143
Digital Millennium Copyright Act 0/
1988,308
digital: divide 4, 317; elite 179; informa-
tion 51-53, 59, 303-305, 341; world
138, 303-305
distance v, 6, 74, 121, 133, 136-137,
145,171,264,269-270,285,345-347;
education 4; friction of 15-16, 264,
270
distanciation 150-151, 246
domain (Internet): counts 172; growth
rates 178; name registration 171-172,
176-180
Dunne, John S. 333-334
dynamics, non-linear 123
economics, evolutionary 111-113, 124
economies: agglomeration 135; devel-
oped and developing 205-207;
restructuring 21, 51
edge city 135, 179
education 4, 73, 76, 84-87
efficiency 83, 125
electronic commerce 4, 134, 172, 205-
207
e-mail 4, 150, 155, 167, 187,218,224-
225, 245-254, 277
employment: accessibility 61-69, 267,
270-273, 276, 286; opportunity 17,
28-32, 57-68
empowerment vi, 5, 332-336
English language (dominance) 152,264
entrepreneurship 274, 309
entropy 92, 95-96, 98, 101-105
environmental: change 11; commons
310; quality 342
Environmental Systems Research Insti-
tute (ESRI) 167
environments, sustainable 11, 125,295
epistemology 111
equity 261-263, 296
Euclidean distance / geometry / space vi,
33,37,74,139,317-318,345
evolutionary thinking 111
extensibility 6,19,217-236,241-254
externalities 280, 344
face-to-face interaction 9, 51, 147-151,
166-168, 172, 231, 245, 263, 267,
289-291
factor analysis 91
fair use 307
Federal Communications Commission
173
field of choices 281
first-sale doctrine 307, 311
fractal structure 140-143
Freedom 0/ Information Act 304

Freire, Paulo 327, 331-336
full-cost accounting 310
functional proximity 39-42
fuzzy: associative memories 104; clubs
9, 18,88; logic 91-106; operators 92-
95; fuzzy power sets 96-98, 104; set
theory 91-106
Galileo 328
gate keeper 225
gender 135,244,273
generic locations 158
Geographic Information Science vi-vii,
6, 16-18, 144
Geographic Information Systems (GIS)
vii-viii, 9-11, 18, 25-26, 136, 144,
164, 167, 221, 241-242, 245-247,
249-254,259-262,276,289-291,317-
325, 328-336; public participation vi;
qualitative 317-336
geographies, alternative 318, 322-327
geography: economic 4, 123; new 113,
134-135, 344; of opportunity 48-51,
56-61,66-69; quantitative 15
geometry 133, 142
Gestalt psychology 322
Getis/Ord Gj * loca1 statistic 17,28-32
global: age 344; city 135, 178-179;
communication network 109, 171,
259; economy 140, 172; information
centers 178; information system 218;
issues 329; village v, 168
globality 219
globalization v, 21, 226
goods: non-excludable 306; non-riva1
306; pub1ic 280
Gopher 189
government 303-315
graphical windows, linked 246-247
gravity model 124, 284; (doubly con-
strained) 39
Gross Domestic Product 206
Hegelian-Marxist ideas 320
hermeneutics 321
Subject Index 373
hybrid: accessibility 241-244; space 9,
17-20, 134-138, 145; space-time 342;
worlds 137-138,243
hyperlinks 194-195
impedance functions 52-53, 61, 68-69
industrial restructuring 52,57-61,286
inequality 10
information 3-6, 133, 187-188,201,259,
269-271,286,303-315,318-320,329;
age of v, 5, 16, 22, 43, 54, 107-113,
134, 173, 187, 193, 201, 218, 229,
235, 242-244, 259, 274-277, 330,
341-350; as collective assets 276; cost
144; flows 25; freedom of304; ghetto
179; haves/have-nots 222, 264, 267,
319, 328; impact access statement
311; industries 5, 305-310; model of
flows 207-214, 325; overload 6, 108,
124, 188; poverty viii, 10; public
commons in 313; resources 5-6, 282;
segregation 267-270, 277; society vi-
vii, 107-109, 115, 121-124, 138, 145,
259, 283, 345; space 133-144; tech-
nology 100-103, 218, 259-265, 267-
277, 289, 304-307, 319, 328, 342;
theory 271
Information and Communication Tech-
nologies (lCT) 342-343, 345-354
informational convergence 293
informational mode of development 171
innovation, technological 3, 109-110,
123,285
intellectual property 31 1-313
intelligent interfaces 289
interaction 96, 139; despatialization of
51; face-to face 9,51, 147-168, 172,
231, 245, 263, 267, 289-291; model-
ing 207-208; patterns 293-295; poten-
tial 4, 23; proximities 39; reaIized 4,
23
international: capital 320; trade 205, 308
Internet Weather Reports 191-192
Internet, 6-8, 47, 107-122, 155-157,
167-168,171-184, 187-201,205-215,
233, 270-275, 353; addiction 108; ad-
dressing scheme 171; backbone net-
work 172, 180-182, 241, 246-247,
374 Subject Index
259-264; census 144, 184; commerce
60; delays 191; domains 116; hosts
114-119, 172-176; host counts 172-
176; households 118-119; hubs 136,
171, 182; information spaces 188-190,
201; language 152; population 114-
116; protocol 180, 189; speed 206;
tools 148, traffk 191; traffk monitor-
ing 161-162; usage 117, 161; user
profile 115; triangulation 209-215
interpersonal temporal accessibility
(ITA) 147-166
Interstate Highway System 172-173
Intranet 82
JANET 205, 208
jobs 6,25,32-43,57-68,2671-275,341
joumey to work 24, 27
justice 314
land use 21, 344-346
language 152-153,218,262
latency 136-139, 191, 206-215; decay
curves 209
law 304-315; of the excludable middle
94-95; model 309; of noncontradic-
tion 94; of surfing 194
leaming 112, 123-125
legislation 6, 303-315
Iibrary 311-312
Library of Congress 5
Liebnitz perspective 26
life: Iines 73- 85; path 220; space 154;
world(s) 220,317-323,332
local context 25-26
Los Angeles 9, 17,25,32-43,91
mapping 322-327, 334-336, 346; mental
323-325, 335
marginalization vi, 287, 314, 317-319
markers 87
market data 144; forces 6; harm 308
membership 91-93
memetics 109
metaphors 110, 136-138,290; biological
or organic 110-113; physica1 or
mechanistic 110-112
metropolis, multicentric 21
metropolitan areas 50, 57, 179; centers
8; dominance 172-173; form 21;
growth 48, 57; restructuring 344
mobile phones 47
mobility 15-16, 24, 224-232, 242, 268-
270,295-297,342,349,353
modal choice/split 50, 62
models 10,288-291,303,318; cognitive
vi; interaction 207-208; mental 289-
291; network 23; predictive 104
National Science Foundation 171
National Spatial Data Infrastructure
(NSDI) 305
navigation 138
National Center for Geographie Infor-
mation and Analysis (NCGIA) vi, viii,
171,328
neamess 15-16
neighborhood 29, 33- 36, 226, 274, 318
net boosterism 193
network(s) 143-144,311; backbone 172,
180-182; fiber optic 173, 180-181; la-
tency 191; models 23; neural 104,
124; performance 191; place-based
11, 102,271,277; social344
New Information Technologies (NIT)
279-298
Newtonian principles 317-321
non-place 134-135
opinion leader 225
opportunity seekers 52-56, 70
Paperwork Reduction Act 304
participation-withdrawal dichotomy
101-105
pedagogical exercises 327
performance indicators 281
phenomenological issues 280, 322
physicallvirtual substitution 83-86
ping utility 207-208

place 3-7, 234 , 271, 322, 343-350;
based networks ll, 102,271; 277; and
identity vi; see non-place
placelessness 171
pluralism 331
political-economic approach 122
population potential 139
positive science/positivism 322-323, 335
post modern 344
Post-Fordist society 279-280,286,294
potential surfaces 9, 78-80
power 221,270,313-314,329-332
powerless 221
pragmatics 112, 124
prisoner's dilemma 350-352
processes 264-265
production sectors 287
productivity paradox 108
progressivism 320
proximity 27,96
public domain 308-309
public transit! transport 21, 57-61
quality of life 108
quaternary business 205-206
randomness 123
rank-size rule 139
real virtualities 19
regimes of regulation 287
region 168; temporal 166
regional development 122
regional science 4, 9
segregation, residential 270
rights 261-264; constitutional 6, 263,
303-315; human 314
Route 128, 174-176
satellite phone 147
sc ale, geographic 7-8, 15-18, 26, 241-
254,295,343
scenarios 61-68, 82-83
search engines 193
self-organizing system 288
Subject Index 375
self-realization 154
semantics 112, 124
Silicon Valley 174-175
simulation 9, 61-62
site and situation 25
skill mismatch 51-52
small-world problem 140
social: agents 217; biology 112; capital
6, 272-276; circle 154; controllO;
costs and benefits 19, 352; Darwinism
112; equity 21, 47, 125,268,296; en-
vironment 155-168; evolution 122;
innovation 3; interaction 150, 303,
343-345; issues 10, 260; networks 4,
27, 269- 276; organization 287; phys-
ics 112, 139; space 156-159; surveys
8; theory 345
space 133-135, 321; absolute and rela-
tive 25,317,321; ethereal 134; expe-
riential 321; functional 19-20; hybrid
9, 17-20, 134-138; isotropie 74;
physical 137; proximal 17,26-29
space-adjusting technologies 137,348
space-time 73-79, 242; aquarium 77,
244-246; behavior 9; diaries 9, 158,
242-245; hybrid 342; location 81;
masks 77-85; models 241; paths 77,
242-254; prisms 77-85,215,241
spatial: analysis 135, 144; gradients 9;
interaction vii, 4-5, 23 242; metaphor
v; mismatch 17, 21-45; models 15,
23-25; relationshipl9, 48, 57, 62;
strategy 219, 226, 231; technologies
vii, 4, 27, 48-57, 347-348
specialization 235
speech recognition 147
S-Plus visualization 246
structuration theory 345
student lifestyles 73-83
suburbanization 21, 27-28, 57-60, 66-67
surprise-generating mechanisms 121
surveillance society v
survey design 9
syntax 112, 124
TCP/IP 180
tele-medicine 60, 147
376 Subject Index
telecommunications 3-11, 18, 21, 31,
42-43,47-59, 172-174, 183; capabili-
ties 53, 56, 60-61, 69-70, 107-113,
207,226,259,319,341
telecommuting 9,51,59-70,226
teleology 111, 124
teieportation 198-199
temporal regions 166
tertiary sector 287
Texas Internet domains 120-121
The Collections 0/ Information Antipi-
racy Act 308
The Consumer and Investor Access to
Information Act 0/1999, 308
Tiebut model 91, 105
time 261-264,281,295; budget 148; use
148, 154; zones 158-169; coloniza-
tion of 148,346; discretionary 76,81-
82,87; down 191; flex 39; geography
9, 17, 73-80, 220, 242-243, 269; ta-
bles 82; use data 158-167
time-space: convergence 137, 282; op-
portunity 279; rhythm 223
T-O map 325
Tokyo Stock Exchange 147
traceroutes 191
tragedy ofthe commons 342,348-353
transculturation 330
transit dependence 58, 62
transportation 3-11, 21, 37-39, 47-71,
281, 286, 295, 341-345, 348-354;
planning 21-23, 349-354; sustainable
341-354
transshipment 9
travel behavior 23, 343-353
travel time 32, 37-43, 57-59, 75, 282;
average daily 54; threshold functions
61
tyranny of space v
us. Copyright Act 307
Uniform Computer Information Trans-
actions Act 310
Universal Commercial Code 309-310
urban: economics 343; growth model
142; issues 287; land market 344;
landscape 8; and regional develop-
ment 122, 172, 280, 286, 296; and re-
gional planning 4,21, 171,349-354;
spatial structure 18, 58, 346; system
172-180, 281-289
urbanization 285
URLs 102
value systems 319, 329, 334
value-added products 304
Varenius project vi-vii, 184, 269, 288,
328
Varenius, Bernard 317,319
V-chip encryption 156
Venn diagram 349
virtual: access 78-79; campus 82; com-
munication 271, 277; community 140;
distance 195-196; information 274;
networks vii, 196; pen pal 147; space
5-9,20, 51 78, 134-145, 342; system
oJganization 288; technologies 73-75,
82-85; worlds vii, 3-4, 141-144, 197-
199,243,268
visualization 6-8, 145, 166, 198, 241-
250, 318-322, 336
visually impaired 193
voice communication 10
voice recognition 152
Web/World Wide Web 8, 85, 102-103,
108-116, 137-140, 147, 156, 187-
201, 208, 225-226, 241-249, 253,
259-263, 270-277, 305; deliverability
191; persistence 193; searchability
188, 193
WebX distance 196
welfare state 287
women 115-117,275
world: borderless 113; hybrid 137-138,
243; shrinking 224; system 322, 328;
time zone c\ock 162-164; views 319,
328-330
zip code areas 120-121, 176
Contributors

PAUL ADAMS is Assistant Professor of Geography at Texas A&M University

and holds a Ph.D. in Geography from the University of Wisconsin, Madison. Re-
search has focused on communications theory and the mapping of media, the ex-
tensibility of everyday life in cities, the politics of telecommunications, and the
emergent role and meaning ofvirtual places.

MICHAEL BA TTY is Professor of Spatial Analysis and Planning, and Director

of the Centre for Advanced Spatial Analysis at University College London. Previ-
ous positions include Director of the National Center for Geographie Information
and Analysis (NCGIA) at the State University of New York at Buffalo, and Head
of the Department of City and Regional Planning and Dean of the School of Envi-
ronmental Design at the University of Wales at Cardiff. Dr. Batty is editor of the
journal Environment and Planning B: Planning and Design. Research interests
involve the development of computer models and computer graphics in land use
and transport planning, the spatial analysis of urban form, GIS technology, the
impact of information technology on cities, and formal methods of decision mak-
ing in policy analysis.

HELEN COUCLELIS is Professor of Geography at the University of California,

Santa Barbara. She holds a Doctorate from the University of Cambridge, a Di-
ploma in Urban and Regional Planning from the Technical University of Munieh,
and an MA.-equivalent in Architecture from the Technical University of Athens.
She spent several years as a professional planner and policy advisor in Greece.
Research interests are in the areas of urban and planning theory, behavioral geog-
raphy and spatial cognition, and geographie information theory. Recent research
includes work on cellular automata models of spatial dynamies, representations of
space in both human cognition and computers, and the development of GIS-based
approaches to resolve locational conflicts in planning. She is Co-editor of the
journal Environment and Planning B: Planning and Design.

MARTIN DODGE is a researcher in the Centre far Advanced Spatial Analysis,

University College London, with a background in social geography and GIS. A
major research interest is the geography of the Internet. He maintains the Cyber-
Geography Research web site at http://www.cybergeography.org/ and he has writ-
ten the book Mapping Cyberspace (Routledge, 2000) with Rob Kitchin.

PHILIP CHARLES (PIP) FORER is Professor of Geography and Geographie

Information Studies at the University of Auckland. His Ph.D. in Geography is
from the University of Bristol. He is Co-editor of the New Zealand Geographer
and edits the journal Transactions 0/ GIS. Research specialties include modeling
individual human activity patterns and space-time trade offs; applications of GIS
378 Contributors

for spatial modeling, visualization and education; applications of GIS in tourist-

flow modeling; and transport and economic geography.

ARTHUR GETIS is Professor and Birch Foundation Endowed Chair of Geo-

graphie al Studies at San Diego State University. His Ph.D. is from the University
of Washington. He served previously as Head of the Department of Geography
and Director of the School of Social Sciences at the University of Illinois. He is
Co-editor of the Journal of Geographical Systems and has published extensively
on spatial statistical modeling, urban growth and change, and general geography.
Currently, his interests are in GIS, spatial statistics, urban transportation modeling,
disease transmission modeling, and geographie education.

MICHAEL F. GOODCHILD is Professor and Chair of Geography at the Uni-

versity of California, Santa Barbara, Chair of the Executive Committee of the N a-
tional Center for Geographie Information and Analysis, Associate Director of the
Alexandria Digital Library Project, and Director of the Center for Spatially Inte-
grated Social Science. He is former Chair of the Department of Geography at the
University ofWestern Ontario, former Editor ofGeographical Analysis, Editor for
Methods, Models, and Geographical Information Sciences for the Annals of the
Association of American Geographers. His research addresses the accuracy of
spatial databases, modeling within GIS, the development and application of loca-
tion-allocation models, and the theory and methodology of spatial analysis.

SUSAN HANSON is Professor of Geography and former Director of the Gradu-

ate School of Geography at Clark University. Her Ph.D. is from Northwestern
University. She is currently Co-editor of Economic Geography, is a former editor
of The Professional Geographer and the Annals of the Association of American
Geographers, and a past President of the Association of Ameriean Geographers.
Her research interests are in urban, social, and economie geography. She has writ-
ten extensivelyon transportation and on gender and labor markets. Recent studies
concern gender and entrepreneurship.

ANDREW S. HARVEY is Professor ofEconomics and Director ofthe Time Use

Research Pro gram at Saint Mary's University in Canada. His Ph.D. is in Econom-
ics from Clark University. His research has explored time-use and human activity
patterns cross-nationally, focusing mainly on Canada, Japan and The Netherlands.
Specific issues include activity-based approaches to travel demand modeling and
episodal and contextual analysis of time-use data.

ERIC J. HEIKKILA is Associate Professor in the School of Urban Planning and

Development at the University of Southern California. His Ph.D., in Economics; is
from the University of British Columbia. His research is in the areas of regional
science and urban economics, with a focus on computer applications in planning
and the development issues that face East Asian cities and cultures.
 Contributors 379

DAVID C. HODGE is Dean ofthe College of Arts and Sciences at the University
of Washington. His Ph.D. is in Geography trom Pennsylvania State University. He
served previously as Chair of the University of Washington's Geography Depart-
ment, as Program Director for the National Science Foundation's Geography and
Regional Science Program, and as Editor of The Professional Geographer. Re-
search has contributed to understanding equity issues in urban social geography
and transportation, and to the impact of information and intelligent transport tech-
nologies on the spatial form ofmetropolitan regions.

OTTO HUISMAN is a Doctoral Candidate and Tutor at the University of Auck-

land and holds a M.Sc. (Honors) trom Canterbury University. His present research
interests include the application of time geographic concepts to urban spatial proc-
esses, with a particular focus on issues of accessibility and spatial interaction. His
Ph.D. research employs GIS and other spatial modeling tools to operationalize
these concepts and adopts time as a co-equal dimension in modeling human activi-
ties.

DONALD G. JANELLE is Research Professor and Program Director for the

Center for Spatially Integrated Social Science at the University of California,
Santa Barbara. He served previously as Assistant Vice Provost of the University
of Western Ontario and as Chair of its Department of Geography. His Ph.D., in
Geography, is trom Michigan State University. He is a former editor of The Ca-
nadian Geographer. Research specializations focus on temporal patterns ofhuman
spatial behavior in cities, and on social issues associated with transportation and
communication technologies.

ME I-PO KWAN holds a Ph.D. in Geography trom the University of California,

Santa Barbara, and is Associate Professor of Geography at The Ohio State Univer-
sity. Her research is directed to application of space-time measures of individual
accessibility, the use of GIS to study travel behavior and gender differences in
accessibility to urban opportunities, and 3-D geovisualization of activity-travel
patterns.

PAUL MACNAB is a Lecturer in Geographic Information Science in the De-

partment of Geography at Saint Mary's University in Canada. His MA is in Geog-
raphy trom the University of Waterloo. Research interests are in issues relating to
fisheries and marine conservation.

HARVEY J. MILLER has a Ph.D. in geography trom The Ohio State University
and is currently Associate Professor of Geography at the University of Utah. Dr.
Miller is also North American Editor ofthe International Journal ofGeographical
Information Science. His research and teaching interests focus on Geographic In-
formation Systems for Transportation (GIS-T) and geocomputational methods for
380 Contributors

spatial analysis. He is weil known for his work on modeling accessibility using
space-time prism concepts.

MITCHELL L. MOSS is Director of the Taub Urban Research Center and is the
Henry Hart Rice Professor ofUrban Policy and Planning in the Robert F. Wagner
Graduate School ofPublic Service at New York University. His Ph.D. is in Urban
Studies from the University of Southern California. He has written extensively
about the diffusion of telecommunications technologies, the role of telecommuni-
cations in altering urban landscapes, and on policies regarding economic devel-
opment, information cities, and the global economy.

ROBERT MUGERAUER is a specialist on the impacts of electronic technology

on communities, especially regarding transformations in the development of urban
and suburban areas and in changes in the sense of place, quality of life, location
decisions, and modes ofwork. He holds a Ph.D. in Philosophy from the University
of Texas and is presently the Meadows Foundation Sid Richardson Centennial
Professor at the University of Texas at Austin, with affiliations in Architecture,
Geography, Philosophy, and Urban Planning.

SHANE MURNION is Head of Geographic Information Systems in the Depart-

ment of Geography at the University of Portsmouth and holds a Ph.D. in Geogra-
phy from Queen's University of Belfast. His research has considered applications
of neural and genetic algorithrns in GIS and the modeling of distance-decay ef-
fects in web-server information flows.

SYL VIE OCCELLI is a Senior Researcher with the Socio-Economic Research

Institute of Piedmont and holds a 'Laurea' in Architecture from the Polytechnic of
Turin. Her research interest is in regional analysis, with special concern for hous-
ing, transportation and mobility, urban modeling, and spatial analysis. The current
emphasis of her work is in 'modeling activity' as a way to promote modernization
in planning practices at metropolitan and regional levels.

HARLAN J. ONSRUD is Professor of Spatial Information Science and Engineer-

ing at the University ofMaine and a research scientist with the National Center for
Geographic Information and Analysis. He is currently a member of the Mapping
Science Committee of the U.S. National Research Counci!. He holds degrees in
Civil Engineering from the University of Wisconsin and Juris Doctorate from the
University of Wisconsin Law Schoo!. His research focuses on the analysis of le-
gal, ethical, and institutional issues affecting the creation and use of digital spatial
databases and the assessment of the social impacts of spatial technologies.

LAUREN MARGARET SCOTT is a product special ist at Environmental Sys-

tems Research Institute (ESRI). She recently completed her Ph.D. in the Joint
Doctoral Program at San Diego State University and the University of California,
Santa Barbara. Her research has addressed social fragmentation issues in urban
 Contributors 381

areas, the use of Exploratory Data Analysis for evaluating spatial data accuracy
within GIS, and most recently, changes in accessibility patterns in the spatial
structure of employment within the metropolitan region of Los Angeles.

QING SHEN is the Mitsui Associate Professor of Urban Planning at the Massa-
chusetts Institute of Technology. His Ph.D. is from the University of California,
Berkeley. His research has concerned the modeling of relationships of urban spa-
tial structure, transportation, and telecommunications. In addition he has investi-
gated the office growth of metropolitan America, and in the impact of
metropolitan restructuring on employment accessibility and central cities.

ERle SHEPPARD is Professor of Geography at the University of Minnesota and

holds a Ph.D. from the University of Toronto. His research adopts a political-
economy perspective on understanding the capitalist space-economy, patterns of
corporate investment, and economic development. He Chairs the Varenius Panel
on Geographies of the Information Society, which sponsored the conference that
formed the basis for this book.

DANIEL Z. SVI is Associate Professor of Geography at Texas A&M University

and holds a Ph.D. from the University of Georgia. His research explores the theo-
retical foundations of GIS, the integration of spatial analysis and modeling with
GIS, and GIS applications in urban and regional studies. Recent work includes the
integration of artificial intelligence (particularly expert systems and neural net-
works) with GIS and remote sensing, the simulation modeling of urban develop-
ment, telecommunications and virtual cities, and the geography of the emerging
information society.

ANTHONY M. TOWNSEND is a Ph.D. candidate in Urban Planning at the

Massachusetts Institute of Technology. His research investigates methods for
tracking Internet traffic among U.S. cities, and the significance ofthe information
economy in altering the role and status ofmetropolitan centers.

MARK I. WILSON is Associate Professor at Michigan State University in the

Department of Geography and Urban and Regional Planning and in the Institute
for Public Policy and Social Research. His academic training is in Economics and
Regional Science, and his Ph.D. is from the University ofPennsylvania. His re-
search is in the areas of economic geography, political economy of cyberspace,
urban and regional planning, and the non-profit sector. He is co-convener with
Kenneth Corey ofE*SPACE: The Electronic Space Project, which investigates
the spatial dimensions of cyberspace (http://www.ssc.su.edul~Dean/espace.htm).
The E*SPACE initiative serves as a network for scholars interested in the spatial
impact of information technologies.
 raffic Safety-

H.von Holst, A. Nygren, R. Thord (Eds.) H. von Holst, A. Nygren, A.E. Andersson
Transportation, Traffic Safety and (Eds.)
Health -The New Mobility Transportation, Traffic Safety and
First International (onference, Göteborg, Health - Man and Machine
Sweden, 1995 The contributions of th is volume
This collection of contributions by demonstrate the importance of a multi-
scientists and adm inistrators presents disciplinary approach in an effort to
some of the latest findings in the area of improve various prevention programs
mobility and its relation to medicaJ tre· aiming at reducing mortality, morbidity,
atment, rehabilitation, public health and disability and handicap in the traffie.
prevention. 2000. x, 190 pp. 27 figs" 23 tabs.
I 997. X. 226 pp. Hardcover' DM 128,-
Hardcover' DM 142,- ISBN 3-540-67443·8
ISBN 3-540-62524-0
H. von Holst, A. Nygren, A.E. Andersson
(Eds.)
H, von Holst, A. Nygren, A.E. Andersson
(Eds.)
Transportation, Traffic Safety and
Health - Human Behavior
Transportation, Traffic Safety and The development of modern vehicles
Health - Prevention and Health and new traffic systems requires more
The book gives a broad and deep over- sophislicated behavior and technology.
view of the strategies that have to be New medical technologies such as
adopled 10 avoid the rapid inerease in improved neuropsychologie methods
road trafflc injuries. and descriptive mapping of behavior
2000. X, 194 pp. 25 flg •., 21 tab •. with imaging techniques facilitate the
Hardcover' DM 128,- understanding of the anatomy and phy·
ISBN 3-540-67444-6 siology of human behavior.
2000. XIV, 423 pp. 95 fig s., 45 tabs.
Hardcover ' DM 169,-
ISBN 3-540·67445·4

Please order trom

· Sugg ested retall prlce
Springer · Customer Service
Haberstr.7
69126 Heidelberg, Germany
Tel.: (0 6221) 345-217/-218
Fax: (0 62 21) 345-229
e-mail: orders@springer.de
or through your bookseller Springer
• Recommended rt'tlil pric('s, Pm« .nd olhotr ckllil$ are SlJbjCCl 10 (h~gc:
withool notict.ln EU counlriel lhe local VAT is Cff«1.M. d&p · BA 67.9ll1
New in Regional Science

MJ.Be<kml nn I. Klnellopouloi, <i.G. Wilkin"'n, T. MoonI IEdJ.)

Lectures on location Theory Ma<hine Vision and

Continuing the (nfO-)clanical tradition o(von
Tllüntn, launhardt, W~r, Pal.nder,an<! Ul5Ch
Ibis book offtrs. (,nh approach u, th.lourion
o{ indumin .nd olhe. «onomic >'t;vili'"of
mlfUl arU5,sp.ti~ prke distribution,loulion.1
,!"daliution, urt...n and [Bn'portllion . ptern$,
.nd .pOlial int...etion in general. It u!.eS demen-
tary«onomic ••• soningsupporttd by .imple
rn. lhern. riell modols, 10m. dassiul, 10m. new.
Th. malhematical methods Ire p.tunltd in num-
~red Mathematiul NotH.
'm. V'O.I9S ... 'Ifig<. .......
_ _ 'DM 1101 1'UO/Ff"SI\.l.11I.qc
MNl·_n6-J
W. Wtidlich, G. Hug (fds.)
An Integrated Model ofTransport
and Urban Evolution
Wilh an Applicatlon 10 a Metropole of an
Advan<ed Image Pro<essing
in Remote Sensing
Pncribn som~ oe IM I.1t"t d.wlopmtnts in !he
t«hniqu" fo. tM anal)"il of rtmotrly .. nstd
~ttUit. imagtry. Fonwing in ~rticularon Slruc·
turaJ information .nd im.ge undtntanding, Ih.
book will p"",id •• useful guid. 10 tmtrging l«h·
niques which will be of valUf in lh~ uploil'lion
of Ih. new gelltralion of ~IY high molution
imagery. A numoo of contribUlions draw on
ltanl wolk in Ih~ compllt~. vision flfld. n.. boQk
~~plo." Ih. i!loCrtuing ~nb ~wftn computtr
vision and ... mot~ Stnsing. and indud.. chaptt..
from .ulhOf'$ working in Ih. two firlds.l! brings
togeth .... !he work of • numM' of Eu~.n expert.
who panicipatcd in !he .wnll ot I Conctrtcd
Action supponcd bylh. Environmmt.nd Oimat.
Prognmm. ot the Eu~an Commission.
1_J,IlS"",t6Slop.lltob>.
_'0lI0 1191161 I fF W. llII.l~~

~mtrging Nation lS8N !-!A06:IS1l·'

19991(1.116 . . . . . . . 11 ......
_ ' D M . I ! 1'.501" 1>01Lil.IOUJO l . Hed~..,d, B. Und .tlÖm IEds.)
I!II< J.S~~111-1

The NESI Yearbook 1999

NOflh EUropeiIn l!>d ~Il ic Sn Inl"9,uion
PlNse 0fWr 110m 1'Itt. IW.09O pp.1tlop.lOtob>.
s,ringef-Vtmg _,,,,,,'0lI0 nt/161 /F' W. 1Ul.IIS.600
',0. 80.: 140201
D-14l01IlMin,GftmMy
F u::~9].Oa27 17 101
.....a~: ooden~nger.de
or through JOUI bookseIlef
.__ _,"W
...... """'I'ri<n .... __ ................
, Springer
__ __
"Io<oIV~l"-,,"'111
,oIap
 Rl ::11111,11 'lltllll'

Papers in
Regional Science
The Journal oftllt
Regional Sden<e
Assodation InterMt lonal
Tbe offLeial journal of thr
RfIIlional Seienee Anoci.·
tion lnlunational, encour·
Iging high·quality scholar.
mip on. broad rangr of
topia in the field of rflllional
scitnee. Theu topia in·
dude, bUI.,.., not limittd 10,
bfh."ionl modfling of 10'
calion, tranJportltion, Ind
---_.-
Journal 01
.~
+-
The Annals 01
--
Geographical Regional Science
Systems An InttrMtlonal Joumal of
Urban, Regional iilnd
Ge-ograph lul lnformillion,
Analysis, ThfOry, and Environmental Rtstar<h
D«ision and PoliC1
Qffki,tl Joum~1 of tne
The Journal of
Western Regional
Gwgraphicll Systems, a
journal dtdicattd 10 gw- Science Association
graphie.l information,
A qu.rlerly journal;n thf
analysi" thwry.and deci· inttrdisciplinary fjeld o(
sion,.ims to encourage and
regional.nd urhan studi ....
promole high·qualilY schol-
I!S purpose i.!O promote
.rship on import.nt thw·
high quo1ity scholarmip On

migration drciJion .. llnd
uu and urban d~lopmrnt.
inlerindu$lry analysis, en,,;-
ronmmlal and «ological
analysis, reSOurce manlge-
ment, urban and rflllionil
poliey Inalysi .. gwsrophical
-
I'fticallnd proctical inun
thc importlnt IhMrelic.!
in rflllionil scirner, gc-ogra-
and empirieal i.. ur' in
phy, Ihe environmenlal sci-
I'fg;onalsdenef,
enee"lIld planning. An
Sub1eriptiOft in/ouTIo1tiOft
important goal oflhr jour-
nal iSlo encourage interdis-
VoI.~.' Inun DM S98
ciplinlry eommunicalion
and I'fst.rch,rp«ially whrn

-
ISSN051G-t8M

-
information sYSlem .. and
sp"lial Jtllistics, 'patial Inaly,i" sp.ti.l Ihf<.>- Tn!<!No. t68
ry .nd splli.1 d«ision sys·

_
Subscription infOfm.ltion 15SN tON1S92
lem' Ire Ihr Ihemrs. (eleclronic fdltionl
For in>l~U1ioNl...,b1cribf... Sub1e,iption InfOfrMtion

---
~" 19. 4 I~,u.es DM 298
Vo/ume Volume 2.4 i,wes DM 298

15SN 1056-8190
TM!<! No. 1011t)
ISSN 1435-5930
TItie No. 10109 ..
. . . . . · C_§oMc.

15SN 1435-5951 MN 14)5-5949 ..IZi-.,.........,

In_. .
_.-
(elKlfonic fdilion) (e!«t,onic fd~ionJ ' "'-'IIU U1)<"lOO
,,,:[tU J1 )lU·nt
_ _ u.s,,,,,c-_ "'*-IfO
.. _ _
........ t _
.... ~ .., ....
$uI>w\pllon 2000:
Fa< IISN......-. «111 100_'",
.,.,..""iot'"-....
Fa<""""""""IISN..-.....,
_~ ...... p/<ow«WIkKI:
__ ,.0. ... ,""
~SOonot"'

c.. ... _ ,_ .....

s.......,NlI10M-'4IS
_ _ IRSAtI
'1IC1"1IU1_''''
_GoodwIn_
lIrWonity 0 1 _ ..
~
_.w.-" I l ..... ,..--.
--.,.~.,.,.,­

--;",.
90S

, Springer
.........
~_611C11MA

...,. ..".....
_ ......... ""' .... f'ri«i ..., .." ..
_(217)111'-
fo:c lll7) 1l1·J06S OU_'...... Io<oI'·ATi'_';-..
-~
 R. Cape11o, P. NiJbmp, G. P. pplng
Sustainable Cities and Energy Policies
Tht lim oflhi. book i.lo highlighllht grell
poltnlial of d.unl,..Jiud (i.e.loul 0' ur!»n)
rn.,gy policit. in Ichitving tnvironmentaUy·
t.tnign dtvrlopm.nl' for mOOr,n cili ... Urbln
.... I.in.bilily i. ploc~ in In. Cont.~1 of Ih.
de!»l' on global .u.tainlbl. dowlopm.nl. Th.
main qUeltion addr~ is: whieh ar' th. critieal
suee", faclors for . ucc.... (ul ur!»n .n.rgy poli·
cies! It is also dult wi1h in I mOla.lnalyli, eon·
lut by au...ing Ind comp.ring Ih. perfOlrmance
Ol( en.rgy polki.. in va,ioul European eiti ... with
• parTieul.r view to r.nrwabi. en.rgy.
'99'l_11l1ll2P1')Q~J7' _ and \I) GIS for planning a~ abo coruidmd.
_ DM'49"
I\.BNl·~"
M.M. fische r, L SuaN!z·VIII&, M. Stelner (Ed • .)
Innovation, Networks and lo<alities
Cast nudie., .mpiriell tvidence Ind COlnCeplual
pel"$p«lives provid. insighl' on Ih.local.ffects
of technologieal innovalion, netwo,kJ .nd reLaled
polk," in AUllria.,Scolland, haly, Ih. N.lh ...•
lands, W"I .. n Euro~ .nd Ih. United Sill...
199'l.JO:J.ll6P1'*~S''''''
_ D M 1019'
lSeN H40·6S8Sl-X
GJ.D. Hewings. M. 5.on1s. M. Mldden,
Y. Klmu .. (Ed .. )
Understanding and Interpreting
Economic Structure
_ _ DMIS9"
199'l,"l6!PI"1~1S"'"
1SeNJ.-_l-l
........ ord .. from
St>ri"9tf . (uot_ s.m...
H""r.1 . 6tU6 HekltIbtr!J, Gtrn\.In,
TtI ~ 10 6l11 ) 14S • 111/-l1l· , ..'(0 6l 11 I J4S • 119
.. mMI:~..,...tM
Of tIIro\ogtI}OIM"~""
. _ ....... J"_ ... ............ _ _ oobjo<, ......... _ _ "".
~
'n[y_rin""Io<ol'·.T._'....~ ... .,..11'
J. SIIII ... ell, 5.Geertman,S. Open.ha ... (Ed s..)
Geographicallnformation and
Planning
IHl1\Orutrata IM .Ial. of IM .rl in IM u.w of infot·
nulOon $)'Siems and moddling methods in different
sp;iliaUgeographicai planning contuts.ll pn:widtl.
rtvitw of dtvdopmmts in Ihr '990S and detaikd
insighl' into IM currenl Ipplication of go:ographical
infornution ItdmoIogy in urbon, phyo;caI.. mviron·
mental and socio·«(momM;: planning. Imporllnl
advances in the uoc 0( Ihr lnter.m for iK(<'$S 10 do!a
,99'l .... SOpp.l')fI9!....l .....
.... "'_DM 169"
IS8Nl·~1·1
M.M. flsch.., P. NiJkamp (Eds.)
Spatial Dynamics of
European Integration
R~lonal and Polley ISSIIU at tM Tllm
of tht (tntllry
Part A rniews the debat. on Eurnpean monNry
unificatiol\. Economic inl'lration ralsts many
issuet, ooc whkh ja drall in deplh ja IM issue 1)(
conwrgenc.... rsus di ... rgenc•. Part 8 centres
lround Ihl' dynamia of o;oh..ion in Ih. EU and Ih.
assoc:iated regionoJ poIicies. rdlecting on n:peri.
mc. (rom IM paslInd challrng.. for the fu1U~.
Part C g,eduom.light on the complt.lilirs of
Iransition Ind integralion 0( Ctn1raJ and Easl"n
European counlrOft.IM second mainr challm~
being faced b)' th~ EU al Ih. turn of Ih. cenlury.
_ _ DMIS9"
199'lXl,l61""'j~1(\"'"
MN )-'I4I).6§1I'·)
, Springer